


An Inconvenient Union

by skreev



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Arranged Marriage, During Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Mental Health Issues, Racism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28962852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skreev/pseuds/skreev
Summary: Felix doesn’t want a wife. Bernadetta doesn’t want a husband. But as the Empire prepares to invade the Kingdom, difficult choices must be made. Bernadetta needs protection after defecting. Felix needs to escape an arranged marriage. Their union is a matter of practicality.But marriage is never easy, especially not during times of war. As Felix and Bernadetta find themselves at the heart of the conspiracies within the Faerghus court, they quickly discover that a marriage of convenience might be more dangerous than they ever predicted.A timeskip arranged marriage Felibern fic. Originally written for Felix Rarepair Week 2021.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Bernadetta von Varley
Comments: 75
Kudos: 71
Collections: Felix Rarepair Week 2021





	1. A Marriage of Convenience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: depictions of canonical mental illness (Dimitri)

“We should run away together,” Felix says one day between classes, draped over Bernadetta’s study chair, as she runs a needle through the spare pair of his uniform trousers.

Bernadetta laughs lightly. “Where we would go?”

“I don’t know.” Felix drums his fingers impatiently on her desk. “I just thought that we both need to get away from our dads. Maybe I’ll start my own mercenary outfit.”

“You want _me_ to be a mercenary? Have you met me?”

“Well, I need someone to mend my trousers.”

“Is that all I am to you? Some sort of pants-fixer-upper?”

“Not exactly. You do shirts too, don’t you?”

Felix hides a smirk as Bernadetta shoots him an indignant glower. “That’s it! No more for you, sir! Next time Bernie will just let your trousers split in front of everyone!” A second later, she adds in a somber voice, “Besides, I don’t know if I’m cut out for that life. What else would I do out there in the cold, angry world?”

Felix shrugs. “I bet you could sell some of these things.” His gaze sweeps over her cluttered desk with its array of stuffed animals and books. “People eat this shit up. You’d be fine out there on your own.”

“Do you like them?” Bernadetta asks. Felix half-nods, and Bernadetta beams. He is one of the few permitted into the sacred bedroom—at least, one of the few willingly permitted. Felix still cannot understand why. Bernadetta is a mystery to him. Small things freak her out, but then she goes on letting him sit and wait as she patches his clothing.

“Is that a cat Hubert?”

“No, it just came out looking kind of sinister,” Bernadetta said. “Sewing faces are really tough! Did you know Ferdinand thought I made curse dolls?”

Felix snorted. “Is he daft? I don’t know an adult man who believes in such stuff.”

“Oh, this was when we were kids. He begged his parents to break our engagement because he thought I was a witch.” 

For some reason, this story turns Felix sour inside. “You were engaged to Ferdinand? _Ferdinand von Aegir_?”

Bernadetta shrugs. “Yeah. What’s with the weird look? It’s not like we’re engaged anymore!”

Felix shrugs. “It doesn’t matter to me. I was just surprised.”

“Oh well, it was so long ago. I’ve been engaged so many times. My dad says they keep falling through because I’m not a good enough bride.” Felix’s fists curl. He doesn’t even realize it until he feels his fingernails bite into his palm. “Haven’t you been engaged?”

“Well, yeah. I can’t actually remember if I’m still engaged to the Mateus girl or not.”

“Felix!” Bernadetta dropped her needle. “What do you mean you can’t _remember_?”

“Please, I’m not going through with it.” Felix scowls. “Engagements are just your parents using you as collateral for their stupid politics. They don’t mean anything, and they rarely last.”

He tells her this, but why does he still feel uneasy about her childhood betrothal to Ferdinand? He has seen them drinking tea together. He wonders if Ferdinand has ulterior motives, and his skin crawls. 

“Easy for you to say,” Bernadetta said. “If your father forced you to marry someone, you’d probably just chop him in half! I can’t do that! He’s so much bigger than me and meaner.”

“You could run away,” Felix reminds her. “Join a mercenary outfit.” Bernadetta laughs. “Or you could find your own husband. You are in control of your own destiny, you know.”

“I’m not sure about that.” Her gaze drops back to the needle pushing through the fabric. “I like being alone. I don’t think any husband would really put up with that.”

“Are you kidding? That sounds like my dream.” It takes a moment before Felix realizes what he just said. Quickly, he hides his deepening blush by faking an interest in one of the stuffed animals on her desk, but all it makes him think about is how she was once engaged to Ferdinand von Aegir and the fucking idiot thought she was a witch.

Shoot. This hadn’t happened in his practice sessions with Sylvain. He has something he wants to ask her, but the words stick in his throat. If she’s already going off to tea and reminiscing about engagements with Ferdinand, she probably doesn’t want to do the same with him, right?

Bernadetta cuts the thread. “There! Good as new!” She hands him the mended pair.

 _Ask her_ , he thinks, _Ask her to tea or dinner or something._

“Um, Felix?” Bernadetta titters. Damn, he has lingered too long. His presence has turned awkward; he shouldn’t probably just leave. But Bernadetta starts to speak again, and it freezes him to the spot. “If you ever do run away…for real, I mean…um, I don’t think I would mind going with you.”

So maybe he chickens out on asking her on a date. Oh well. This answer is even better. Sylvain might not think so, but the timing is all wrong for a date anyways. In a few days, Byleth will descend to the Holy Tomb for some strange rite that Rhea has cooked up. Felix has plenty of time afterwards to plan their escape. It is not as if the world is about to end.

* * *

Garreg Mach burns.

Ash streams through the air like snowfall, so thick each breath stings. Felix’s eyes water as he squints through the haze. The town stands in total desolation, once sturdy facades now reduced to splintered foundations and mounds of rubble.

Felix races through the streets. He has lost sight of his friends in the anarchy of war. For one glorious moment, a draconic leviathan overshadowed the sky, but the creature fell as quickly as it appeared. The screaming had only grown worse.

A blur of movement catches his eye. Friend or foe, it matters not. One, he will need to rescue; the other, kill. He chases the dark blur down the alley right up until it ends in a wall of crumpled mortar. Felix slows. Something is wrong here.

A scuffle to his right alerts him. Bricks slide off a broken wall. Aha, his quarry hides for him behind the ruin. 

Suddenly, the perpetrator leaps out. “Don’t hurt me! Hya--!” The screech ends sharply as Bernadetta recognizes Felix. In one hand, she holds a dagger, the grip just like he taught her. “Felix!” Felix readies his sword. If she is going to attack him, then he will defend himself—friendship be damned.

But he cannot deny the shake that suddenly overtakes his hand.

Bernadetta tosses the dagger to the side. Surrender, already? Instead, she charges him. Her arms entwine his body, and he stiffens in response. Felix’s sword is still raised, but his arm trembles as Bernadetta’s weight buckles against him.

“Oh, Felix, thank the goddess it is you,” she sobs into his chest.

“Did you know about this?” Felix asks curtly.

“No!” Bernadetta shakes her head. “I swear. I knew nothing. But I can’t go back. I can’t go back to the Empire. And everyone thinks I’m with Edelgard, and all my friends either want to kidnap or kill me.”

Including Felix. He manages to lower his sword. He cannot afford to drop his guard, but the way Bernadetta clings to him forces him to pause amidst the battle.

How could he have ever thought that Bernadetta, of all people, was a conspirator? Guilt tangles up inside of him. How easily he had let her take the blame…

_Fuck this whole situation. Fuck Edelgard. And fuck the Empire._

“Bernadetta, are you saying that you want to defect?”

When she sobs, she teeters on total collapse, a dead weight in his arms. His hand traces her back; he can feel every vertebrae vibrate under his hand. She does not answer, but Felix knows that he cannot just leave her. It will be as good as signing her death warrant.

“Stick with me,” Felix says, “and don’t throw away your weapon again like that, especially not when you’re charging an enemy combatant. I could have killed you.”

“You’re not my enemy,” Bernadetta says, dabbing her eyes with her scarf. “Besides, you’re just a big softy, Felix. You wouldn’t kill me.”

“You don’t know that!”

Bernadetta release something like a sob or a laugh. “It’s okay. I know how to disarm you anyways.”

Fuck. How could he have ever thought ill of her?

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“We have to find Dimitri and the others,” Felix says. “I think we’re retreating. The Empire is too strong.”

He grips her hand as he guides her through stark and empty streets. The memory of the bustling town haunts them as they navigate between the wreckage. Ahead, a battalion in gleaming Imperial plate marches by, catching the glint of firelight that consumes the old courthouse. Felix tugs Bernadetta behind a wall, folding her body against his with his sword held out before them.

“Where’s your bow?” Felix asks.

“I’m sorry. I lost it. A whole building nearly made me a Bernie pancake!”

Felix groans. He cannot blame her after seeing how easily the shops and walls have crumpled beneath the Empire’s trebuchets. Still, all they have for defense is her tiny dagger and his sword. They will never be able to take on these battalions. They will have to sneak their way out.

When the way clears, they dart between buildings, watching and waiting for the next moment to escape. By the time they make it out of the town, the sun sets on the horizon, spilling blood red light into the smoky sky. As the winds sweep the smoke south, shadows elongate over the trees.

Felix inhales his first lungful of fresh air. Only now that he has escaped the heat of the town does he realize how profusely he has been sweating. Bernadetta’s hand feels slick in his own; he is not sure whose grasp is clammier. 

“What now?” Bernadetta asks as they pause at the edge of a stream. Felix splashes cold water onto his face. The water runs off him black with ash.

Felix recalls something about regrouping north of the monastery. He can make out the direction from the sunset, but he’s uncertain who else may have survived. He instructs Bernadetta to drink as he plots their next move. If they cannot find the others, they will have to set off for Fhirdiad alone.

Bernadetta drinks and washes her face. Soot still streaks her chin, and her hair has gone even wilder from the crackling heat of the town. As Felix leads through the woods, she dutifully follows, her dagger sheath clenched in both hands.

“Sh, wait.” Felix holds an arm out. Evening gloam permeates the woods, and they cannot see far ahead of them. Voices murmur in the distance, and brush crackles.

Felix sneaks forward, pressing against a tree as he waits for someone to emerge.

“Sylvain, be serious for a moment!”

Felix expels a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He beckons to Bernadetta with his fingers, and she scampers forward, sinking her fingers into in his back.

“Ingrid!” Felix calls. Ingrid and Sylvain come running, their faces illuminated by a whorl of Sylvain’s magic. Ingrid throws her arms around Felix. He groans and shrugs her off.

“Felix, you’re safe,” she says.

“Goddess, are we happy to see you,” Sylvain adds. “Dimitri is—"

More footsteps crunch and explode. Ingrid and Sylvain slide apart as Dimitri hurtles towards Felix. He does not look well, Felix thinks, with his blanched face and unblinking eyes. Crackling with anger, his expression consumed by rabid bloodlust, he grips the front of Felix’s shirt with gore-slicked hands.

“Did you get her?” he asks. “Did you slice that whore’s head off?”

Felix grabs Dimitris’ wrist and twists so that the prince releases him. “Get ahold of yourself. Edelgard has retreated.”

“We have to follow,” Dimitri mumbles. “I will hunt her down like the animal she is. I will not let her survive the night.”

“Whoa there, buddy,” Sylvain says. “We’ve all had a hard day. Don’t do anything rash.”

In that moment, Dimitri spies Bernadetta, cowering in Felix’s shadow, too afraid to speak. Rage glimmers in his eyes, but his lips quirk upwards in a smile.

“ _You_ ,” he spits. “You are one of them.” He reaches for the lance strapped to his back. “You will pay for this.”

“What do you think you’re doing, boar?” Felix snarls. He holds one arm out to guard Bernadetta, while his sword points towards Dimitri. He has never drawn his weapon on Dimitri before—not seriously at least.

“I’ll take her head instead,” Dimitri says. “I’ll put it on those damn trebuchets and shoot it straight to that bitch in Enbarr.”

“She’s on our side!” Felix shouts, but Dimitri scoffs. 

“Dimitri!” Ingrid cries. “What are you doing?”

Sylvain steps forward and places his hand on Dimitri’s shoulder. Engaging the full brunt of his strength, Dimitri elbows him sharply and whacks him with the blunt shaft of his lance so that Sylvain is stumbling backwards.

“Look at yourself, boar!” Felix cries. “You’re so fucking obsessed that you’re hurting your own friends.”

“I will not have you stop me!” Dimitri roars. “If you do not give me her, I will kill you myself.”

“Go on then! Kill me!”

Dimitri’s first blow strikes against Felix’s sword, and the power of his crest radiates through the attack. As weapons lock, Felix realizes that Dimitri seriously considers killing him. _Damnit_. Felix knows his strengths. He is fast. He is agile. His footwork is impeccable. But tall, he is not, and Dimitri’s great height creates a leverage that is difficult to counter without fully going on the offensive. Felix needs a way to incapacitate him without killing him.

So he cheats. Because there is one skill that Felix has that Dimitri does not.

Thunder crackles in the sky. A splinter of white heat shocks Dimitri. So closely are they tangled that Felix can feel the electricity diffuse through their weapons and singe the hairs on his arms. Those recent reason seminars have paid off. Felix can withstand the force. Dimitri cannot.

Dimitri staggers backwards, his lance sparkling with residual energy. In a blur of movement, Felix tackles him and wrangles him to the ground. Dimitri’s grip on the lance weakens, and Sylvain—thank the goddess for Sylvain— pries it from his hands.

Felix holds his sword to Dimitri’s throat. “Get ahold of yourself or you’re going to kill us all. You want to kill Edelgard? Then stop acting like such a fucking animal. Bernadetta can help us, but not if she’s dead.” When Dimitri growls, it really does sound like some sort of feral pig. “You can’t help us either if you’re dead, which is what is going to happen if you don’t get your shit together.”

Dimitri sucks in breath like he is drowning. His eyes slide close.

“Now if I get up, are you becoming to become our fucking prince or am I going to have to put you down like a rabid dog?” When Dimitri’s hands move, Felix thinks he is going to try to shove Felix off of him. Instead, he clutches his own head and moans.

“Felix, that’s enough now.” Ingrid says as she crouches by Dimitri’s head. Her fingers brush away his matted blond hair. “We have to leave now if we are ever going to make it back to Fhirdiad.”

Felix slides off Dimitri. He sheaths his sword and glances around for Bernadetta. She huddles against a tree, sobbing as she stares at Dimitri writhing on the ground. Felix grabs her wrist. Immediately, she burrows into his side, and he does not let her go until they reach Fhirdiad.

* * *

It takes two weeks to reach Faerghus by foot. Two weeks of avoiding mountain thoroughfares where the Empire imposes their will. Two weeks of near starvation and unhealed wounds and hard mossy beds. Once they pass the border into Charon, they leverage their noble birth into securing a few horses, and then the journey becomes much easier. A garrison of men meet them in Galatea, and suddenly, they are chaperoned for the rest of the journey.

Felix has never enjoyed Fhirdiad, but there is a certain relief in returning. News has traveled quickly of the assault on the Church, and now nobles pour out of every drain and gutter in the city. As his father is a member of the Lord Regent’s cabinet, Felix receives accommodation in the castle as a royal guest, although he has no more clothing than the battered uniform from Garreg Mach.

The only good thing about the whole mess is that the impending war with the Empire has left Rodrigue so busy that he cannot bother Felix. But Felix knows that he cannot avoid his father forever, and sure enough, after a week of relative peace, Rodrigue calls him to his office.

Rodrigue stands at his window as Felix enters the office. “Felix, it is good to speak with you at last.”

Felix crosses his arms. “What do you want now?”

“This is a crucial moment for the Kingdom,” Rodrigue says. “You and I ought to discuss where we stand in all this.”

Felix huffs. “What do you mean where we stand? We’re going to fight the Empire.”

Rodrigue nods. His hand sweeps to a chair by the fire. Felix shakes his head. He prefers to stand, legs braced in fighting pose. It is his standard disposition with his father, even as his father elects to sit behind his desk.

“That opinion is not as popular as you might think,” Rodrigue says. “Already, the western lords are threatening to defect to the Empire’s side. If we are going to defeat the enemy at our doors, we must ensure that Faerghus remains unified.”

This makes no sense to Felix. Of course, he knew that discontent fomented in the western provinces, but to defect to an enemy nation at the first threat of war? The idea alone makes Felix’s head swirl. 

“To do that, we must remember that the Fraldarius family are not just warriors,” Rodrigue continues. “We are politicians, and we are leaders.” Felix scoffs. “Do not take this duty lightly. You will inherit the title one day and with it the responsibilities. Now, more than ever, Felix, you must put aside your feelings for me and do what is needed for this country.”

“I’m not petty,” Felix says. “I know what needs to be done.”

“What needs to be done,” Rodrigue says, “is to secure as many alliances as possible to bring in the western factions before the Empire invades the Kingdom.”

“So are we going to send the army west?”

Rodrigue sighs. It is the sigh of a disappointed father. “We would prefer to use more diplomatic tactics. An assault on our own people could only worsen the situation. We are in a precarious position. We have no king, only a regent and a prince who cannot take the throne until he is twenty-one. The Prince is…unwell, which certainly complicates matters.”

“So what are you suggesting then?”

“First of all, we need to formalize any alliances that we can. My initial instinct is to reinvoke your former engagement to Adeline Mateus. Her father seemed to suggest that if they had stronger ties with the east, he would feel more confident about standing up to his western neighbors.”

Felix’s stomach drops. His father cannot be serious. Of all things that Felix expected to discuss here today, marriage was not one of them.

“A wedding? Now, of all times? There’s a war going on.”

“You may be too young to realize this,” Rodrigue says, “but war is when most political marriages take place.”

“Well, guarantee your support another way! You don’t need to prostitute me out to do that. Give him soldiers. Give him money.”

“And in return, what guarantee would we have that he would not take that money and that support and run straight to the Empire with it? If his daughter is with us, it will provide sufficient motivation not to betray the Kingdom.”

“I guess you don’t really trust him then. Some alliance, huh? You’re going to use his daughter just to keep him in line?”

“This is how such marriages work,” Rodrigue sounds exasperated already. “You are not naïve. You have known of this for many years.”

“First of all, isn’t Adeline in some sort of affair with the Kleiman boy?” Felix only knows this because Sylvain had failed so many times over the years to seduce her. The girl put up a stone wall, speaking of chastity and devotion to her one true love— a brutish knight by the name of Gulliver who once dislocated Felix’s jaw in a fight. Somehow, Felix doubts he would get along with his new bride.

“She will do her duty, just as you will do yours.”

“Second of all, Mateus is a weak lord anyways. His militia is smaller than Galatea’s! Is that really who you want to make an alliance with?”

Rodrigue sighs. “Mateus controls a crucial corridor between the east and the northwest. We lose him, we lose access to the Rhodos Coast and the Kleiman lands.”

“So give him your own militia, and make sure your soldiers are damn well aware of who they are loyal to. Mateus won’t try anything with Fraldarius soldiers in his land. He’d be a fool to give up any allegiance to a Duke in exchange for the petty power of western counts.”

“Felix, I understand that you are hesitant to marry,” Rodrigue says. “But you are a young eligible heir, and if not Mateus, then you will have to marry and likely soon. War is coming. It may be civil war with the west or a full out invasion from the south. In any case, we must do what we can to secure the future lineage of our family.”

“Is that all you fucking think about? The lineage? You want me to shove out a kid now of all times?”

“That is not—”

“Oh, I get it. You want my replacement ready in case I die like Glenn!”

Rodrigue flinches and exhales a deep sigh. Felix has delivered a shot straight to the heart. Sure, he had intended the barb to sting, but sometimes, Felix surprises even himself with how brutal he can be. 

After a moment, Rodrigue collects himself and continues.

“Whether you chose to admit it or not, this family is a keystone of this nation,” Rodrigue says. “The Fraldarius family have served as members of the Royal Cabinet for centuries. War is fought when politics fail. Wars are ended when politics succeed. Your physical strength will not stop the west from defecting. Your marriage will.”

It annoys Felix how Rodrigue cleaves to the heart of the issue.

“Well, I’m the one stuck in the marriage, so you might as well give it some more thought. Whoever I marry will be tethered to our family forever. You want to waste that on a Mateus?”

“Do you have a better idea?” Rodrigue’s stare cuts through Felix.

Felix’s mouth goes dry. His heart thuds rapidly. His father wants an answer from him. It surprises Felix how easily the answer comes.

“Bernadetta.”

“The Varley girl?” Rodrigue sighs and rubs his temples. “I should have expected this.”

Felix swallows hard. “If you think about it for three seconds, it makes a lot more sense.”

“Felix, this girl’s mother is one of Edelgard’s top conspirators,” Rodrigue says. “Lord Dominic and Margrave Gautier both believe the girl is a spy. Everyone in this court either wants to lock her up in the tower or barter her back to Adrestia.”

“You are not sending her back to Adrestia.” Felix surprises himself with how feral his voice sounds. It cuts the back of his throat.

Rodrigue leans back in his chair and holds his hands out. “Fine. Convince me.” It is a challenge. Felix already hears the disbelief in his voice.

“Her mother may be a conspirator, but her mother betrayed her own father and put him under house arrest.” Felix’s mind races as he spills out the words. Never has Felix been politically minded, but his brain somehow conjures the perfect intrigue. “As the rightful heir with the Crest of Indech, she is technically the one who should inherit if her father is declared incompetent. Without her, her mother’s political position is greatly weakened.”

Rodrigue watches his son with curiosity. The idea does not immediately repulse him, Felix realizes, and so Felix plunges forward.

“Since Edelgard is rebelling against the Church, she needs to unify the religious faction of the Empire under her own sect, but if the heir to the Ministry of Religion leaves, the shockwaves will guarantee dissent amongst the faithful in Adrestia. It will weaken an essential pillar. She’ll not just be fighting against a church but fighting against her own people!”

Rodrigue nods slowly. “And how does marriage solve this issue?”

“Mark my words, Lady Varley will do whatever it takes to get Bernadetta back under her control and use her as a puppet the same way she is using her father. If Bernadetta were married, we could offer her protection. It would be harder for her mother to justify stealing her from her husband. Besides, it would put the inheritance of Varley within Kingdom control, a crucial negotiation factor should we ever sign a peace treaty.”

“You know, for someone who hates politics, I think you are more adept at this than you might realize,” Rodrigue said. “Now may I ask a question as a father and not as a Duke?”

Felix shrugs. “I’m not stopping you.”

“Were you previously attached to this girl?”

Felix’s face burns. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You bring a girl from the Empire after she defects to Fhirdiad, barely leave her side for a week, and then tell me you want to marry her?” The smug expression on Rodrigue’s face makes Felix want to punch him. “Did you—perhaps— already make a promise of marriage to her?”

Felix thinks carefully before he speaks. He had never managed to even ask Bernadetta on a date. He doubts his father will be impressed by a friendship forged over disarming techniques and mended clothing. His next words are cautious, carefully chosen and framed.

“No, but we talked about running away together.”

Felix understands how his father will interpret the statement, but he does not care. His father will assume that they intended to elope. It works.

“Very well,” Rodrigue says. “I will have to speak to Rufus in the morning. Hopefully I can get to him without Cornelia in his ear. If we can secure the Lord Regent’s approval, we can have this done within a fortnight.”

“What? That’s all it takes? I thought you were going to fight me on this.”

“I suppose we could look at it two ways,” Rodrigue says. “One, if the Varley girl is defecting to Faerghus based on her affection to you, it would make sense to secure that alliance with a marriage. Like you, I incline to believe that the girl could prove to be an asset, one we will want to ensure will remain within the right hands. And two, if a reasonable offer of marriage secures my son’s happiness, I should be satisfied with that, even if it was not my first selection.”

A strange feeling invades Felix. A tremulous sensation, almost nauseous and rattling, like drinking too much tea on an empty stomach. 

“However, if this is the path you wish to follow, understand that we will have to move quickly,” Rodrigue says. “Bernadetta is technically stateless. That puts her in a precarious position. Rufus could easily assign her wardship to someone else, and I am not certain yet that everyone in court shares our interests. There will be no delays in this.”

Felix nods, an increasing numbness poking through his body. This is his idea. _Why is he already panicking?_

“She will need to sign pledges of loyalty to the kingdom,” Rodrigue continues. “This may, despite our best efforts, cause her to forfeit her inheritance in the Empire.”

Felix does think she will mind.

“Fine,” Felix says, “let’s just get this done.”

“I agree,” Rodrigue says, “but that means you will have to formally ask her to marry you.”

Shit. Felix had forgotten about that part.

* * *

Fhirdiad is nothing like Enbarr.

Bernadetta isn’t certain whether or not she prefers this. Enbarr shines with the sun, its tawny sandstone brightening each boulevard, the cobble strewn from sea-polished pebbles blushing pink in the daylight. Fhirdiad is gray—gray limestone under a gray sky, courtyards paved with flat panes of gray flagstone. Unlike Enbarr’s boulevards, which drip and drape with greenery, nothing seems to grow here but a slick green moss and the occasional snarl of ivy climbing up a timberframe roof.

“Is this your first time in Fhirdiad?” Ingrid asks. A servant pours tea in a small ancillary chamber in the castle. Somewhere within the labyrinth of the castle, strangers ordain her destiny. Already, she has caught them staring at her, whispers spitting from their lips like poison from an asp.

Bernadetta nods. “Yeah, it’s um…well, you know. I’ll be happy staying in my room.” She only agreed to the tea because the sudden influx of nobles in the court had left accommodations scarce, and Bernadetta already had to share a room with Ingrid. Both are unmarried women, maidens of the court, and thus shoved in some forgotten closet.

Bernadetta hopes it stays that way. She does not want to be found.

“You’ll be safe here,” Ingrid says. “Edelgard only succeeded at Garreg Mach because she had the element of surprise. Once Faerghus mobilizes its army, they’ll never make it into our borders. Especially not as far north as Fhirdiad.”

Bernadetta swirls her tea in the cup. “What do you think is going to happen to me?” 

Ingrid sighs. “I am not sure. But rest assured, we’re not going to let anything bad happen.”

“What if Dimitri doesn’t let me stay?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because he thinks I’m a spy!” The image of his features contorted in rage returns to her, and she buries her hands in her face. “He wants to kill me! I know it!”

“Bernadetta,” Ingrid speaks her name like a scold, “Dimitri was just upset. We all were. We were taken completely by surprise. Besides,” Ingrid pours herself another cup of tea, “Felix won’t let him touch you.”

The idea makes Bernadetta warm inside, like a sip of tea that expands through her gut. It is strange, she thinks. Just a few weeks ago, she had been mulling over exactly what she felt about Felix. Now, the war had broken her from any fantasies of running away and becoming an ill-suited mercenary. Well, perhaps there was still hope for her to run away, but where would she go? No money. No family or connections. Nothing but the grace of the lords who locked themselves up to debate her future.

The door to their closet opens, and Felix marches in, his face white and scowling.

“Have you heard of knocking, Felix?” Ingrid asks.

“Shut up. I need to talk to Bernadetta.”

Ingrid gestures for him to sit. “Would you like to join us?”

“Alone,” Felix hisses. Ingrid rolls her eyes and scoops up her teacup as she leaves the room.

“Oh no, what’s wrong?” Bernadetta’s anxiety kicks off at record pace. Thoughts of doom flood her mind. They’re kicking her out. They’re going to execute her as an enemy of state. Or worse: they’re going to send her back to the Empire. 

Felix begins to rock on his heels, hands stuffed in his pockets. He still wears his uniform from Garreg Mach; little splatters of blood stain the cuffs.

Felix squeezes his eyes shut. “Bernadetta, will you marry me?”

The question strikes like lightning on a clear day.

“Wh-what?” she screeches. “Where did that come from?”

“Look, we were going to run away together. How is this any different?”

“It’s a lot different! We were going to become mercenaries. Now you want to marry me?”

Felix hushes her. In a more urgent whisper, he adds, “My father assumes we are a couple who were going to elope. That’s the only reason he’s considering letting you stay here. They all think you’re an Empire plant. And if I don’t marry you, my only options are to abandon the war or to marry the Mateus girl.”

“You said you weren’t going to do that.”

“It’s different now, all right? I’m not running away now of all times. I’m not a coward.”

Bernadetta’s lungs seize, robbing her of breath, until her vision swirls and her head lightens. “We can’t do this Felix.”

“Well, why not?” Felix asked. “If we do this, I can bring you north with me. I can keep you safe.”

“Felix, you don’t want to marry me,” Bernadetta said. The teacup clatters in her hand. “I’d make a terrible wife.” She recalls her father’s endless stream of training. Demure, she is not. Patience has never favored her. She forgets which fork to eat with at the dining table and how to curtsy with the right foot forward.

“Not to me you wouldn’t,” Felix said. “Look, we like each other well enough right? That’s all you need in a marriage really. It’s better this way actually. No surprises. No lovesick infatuation blinding us. We both know what we’re getting.”

“What are we getting?”

“You want your space; I want mine. You need to escape the Empire; I need to escape my father’s political machinations. This could work out for both of us. I don’t want a wife any more than you want a husband.”

Bernadetta finally manages to breathe. It comes out hard and fast and squeaking. 

“Look, do you want me to get down on one knee or something?” Felix asks. He crosses his arms, and his shoulder curl forward. “I’m not going to force you to act wifely or to do anything you don’t want to do. It’s the best opportunity for both of us.”

“I just need to…think.” Bernadetta inhales heartily. Just a few weeks ago, they had been laughing about arranged marriages in her bedroom at Garreg Mach. Now Felix proposes in the guest room of a foreign castle. It seems too unreal.

The urge to run away and hide overwhelms every other instinct, but such desire plunges into despair with the realization that she has nowhere to go. Even if she wants to return to the Empire, she currently sleeps in enemy territory. The other lords are salivating over their prize—the crested heir to an Adrestian ministry.

Felix sits beside her. “You can have your own room. You don’t have to go any balls or other fancy shit, because I certainly won’t be. And after this war, if I ever do run away, I’ll still take you with me.”

Hardly the proposal Bernadetta had dreamed about. Certainly never the one she had written in her stories. She forces herself to remember what is at stake. It is the best—and only—offer she will receive.

Bernadetta sets the teacup down in front of her. “Okay, then. Fine. I’ll do it. I will marry you.”

“Alright then.” Felix resumes a strange calm. “Um, look, I know it’s not any relief, but—but I’ll do what I can to not make you miserable.”

Suddenly, he leans over and pause awkwardly. He presses a quick kiss to her cheek. It feels soft and wet and hollow. Bernadetta roots to the spot, too stunned by the unfolding situation to process what is happening. 

Married. She is going to be married to Felix Hugo Fraldarius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a oneshot written for the First day of Felix Rarepair week. Instead, it’s…this. This all-consuming very long long fic. I’ve written a lot about Bernadetta running away to Faerghus as a sidenote in other stories, and I think it is finally time for me to explore this idea fully. I am really attracted to exploring and writing the gaps in the Fire Emblem stories, so looking at all the crazy stuff that happens during the timeskip is a project that really excites me.
> 
> It might also destroy me. We’ll see how I’m doing in another 20,000 words.
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated! You can also reach out to me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/skreev1) I’ll be posting the next chapter on Day 7 (Free Day) of Felix Rarepair Week. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my other Felix fics this week!


	2. Courting Danger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is rotten in the Kingdom of Faerghus. As disagreements erupt between Rufus and Dimitri about how to approach the war, Felix's marriage becomes the locus of intense scrutiny. Bernadetta receives her first introductions to the court of Faerghus, with disastrous results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter CW: mental illness, racism 
> 
> I think this is an appropriate place to mention that as I am looking at what is happening the timeskip, this story will eventually be confronting some difficult situations with Dimitri and Dedue. Which means that going forward, there will be descriptions of canonical racism and mental illness in this story. Please read with caution. Content warnings will be posted to the beginning of each chapter.

“The Empire may have won at Garreg Mach, but their forces took a blow.”

Felix listens as the Kingdom’s top generals report to Rufus and Dimitri in the throne room. Two thrones crown the dais at the front of the room. Prince Dimitri sinks into one; Lord Regent Rufus reclines in the other. Before the dais, the Lord Regent’s cabinet congregates in rows of wooden chairs; everyone else stands. Rodrigue sits among the first row of the cabinet, head bending to Margrave Gautier’s furious whispers. 

“They will have to regroup their forces, but soon they will come to the Kingdom’s doorstep, and we must be ready to meet them there.”

Rufus’ head droops on his fist. “Is there any hope of signing a treaty with them before that happens?” he asks, seemingly bored by the threat of war.

The Generals mutter to themselves. “Sir, we believe that the Empire’s intention is to annex the Kingdom,” says one of them. “The strange creatures that appeared at Garreg Mach bolster their human battalions greatly. Signing a treaty now may only give them more time to reinforce their troops and invade at a later date.”

Rodrigue clears his throat. Standing from his chair, he sweeps a dramatic bow to the ground. “If I may, your highness,” he tips his head towards Dimitri. “Lord Regent.” He turns now to Rufus. “When the Empire attacked Garreg Mach, they started war not only with the Church of Seiros but with the Kingdom and Alliance as well. We must ally ourselves with Leicester. The Empire cannot fight a war successfully on two fronts. You must give the order to send a diplomatic envoy to the Roundtable immediately.”

Rufus’s nods in agreement until Cornelia scoffs.

“The Alliance has nothing to offer us,” Cornelia says. “Lord Regent, allow me to propose an alternative.” Rufus’ head lifts from his hand as Cornelia approaches the dais. “We must think now of preserving Faerghus. Your initial inclination to sign a treaty with the Empire I believe is correct. If we sign a treaty with them now, they will deflect and attack the Alliance instead, but if we allow the Alliance to make that move first, they will invade the Kingdom with everything they have.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,” Rodrigue says. “If they invade the Alliance and win, no treaty in the world will keep them from crossing our borders, and then we will have no allies.”

“On the contrary, a war with the Alliance may weaken them significantly,” Cornelia says. “All we know thus far is that Edelgard bears some grudge against the church. If we hear their terms, we can settle matters without wasting innocent lives, strengthen our military, and be ready in case they do attack, which I do not believe they will.”

Felix burns with rage as he listens. Cornelia’s idea sounds so pernicious to him, so contrary to everything he had ever learned about war and battle, that it verges on seditious. Yet Rufus almost seems to consider it! His face furrows in contemplation as he nods along to the rhythm of her words.

“Enough!” Dimitri slams his fist on the arm of the throne. “We are not appeasing Edelgard!” Felix watches and waits for the boar to emerge. Already, his hand flexes around the arm of his throne. “If they are weak, then we must make the first strike!”

“Your Highness, you are not well,” Cornelia purrs. “You are still fevered from your long journey.”

Rodrigue places a hand on Dimitri’s shoulder. It startles Felix how easily that calms the beast. Dimitri huffs and his expression squeezes with displeasure, but he says no more.

Suddenly, Margrave Gautier stands. “As the Lord Regent’s War Counsel, I officially recommend that we follow Duke Fraldarius’ recommendation to fortify our borders and establish a mutual alliance with Leicester.” Sylvain’s father, an auburn-haired giant drawn with long scars, makes eye contact with Cornelia, and in his deep booming voice, he adds, “If you feel the desire to share your expertise, Cornelia, I believe there is an outbreak of cholera in Arianrhod. Leave matters of war to the soldiers.”

An icy rage overclouds her expression, perfectly painted lips curling in rage. Her long nails scrape into the wood of Rufus’ throne as her hand curls around the back. 

“As a member of the Lord Regent’s Cabinet,” Lord Dominic now speaks, “I agree with the Margrave and the Duke. The recent turmoil in the west of the Kingdom greatly concerns me, and I suspect now that the recent troubles are due to Empire interference. Perhaps we ought to turn our attention there.”

“Lord Rufus,” Cornelia purrs, as she kneels beside Rufus’ throne. “I will obviously defer to your wise counsel.” Her hand sits on his thigh. Felix bristles. How blatant can she be? “Understand that we all speak out of love for our Kingdom, but say the word, and we will all follow.”

“I have much to consider,” Rufus says.

Dimitri slams his fist down on the arm of his throne. “What is there to consider? Your entire counsel advises that we defend ourselves!”

“You are an adept fighter, Dimitri, but war requires more than brute strength,” Rufus says. “Whichever move we make, they will respond with ten times the force. I would be content to with settling matters quickly.”

Dimitri flings upwards from his seat. He throws himself towards Lambert, arms planted on either side of his uncle, caging the man against his own throne.

“If you want to settle matters quickly, then you will march into their quarters and cut them down before they have a chance to strike,” Dimitri howls. “Sitting here and waiting, like cattle for the slaughter, will only ensure our own demise.”

Cornelia shrinks back from the throne, as if Dimitri threatens her and not Rufus. “Your Highness, contain yourself.” How dramatic the witch seems, pale hand fluttering at her heart, lips wrenched open in a theatrical sigh. No one believes the performance save Rufus, it seems.

“Contain myself? And let you open the gates to our enemies?” Dimitri snaps. Felix stews from the audience. It enrages him how easily Dimitri lets himself be riled. Felix does not enjoy the performance of politics, but even he understands what a misstep it is to lose one’s cool in front of an audience.

Rufus presses back against the seat, trying to avoid the spittle flying from Dimitri’s mouth. “Where is his manservant? Daedalus!”

He means Dedue. Dedue emerges from the crowd behind Felix and rushes to Dimitri’s side. With gentle reassurance, he coaxes Dimitri back from the throne. Palpable relief crosses Rufus’ face, and for some reason, that launches Dimitri off again. He wrangles himself from Dedue’s grasp.

“Unhand me!” he shouts. “You—” He points towards Rufus, “you are not the king, and I will not grant you the authority to destroy this kingdom!”

“You are not the king either,” Rufus reminds him coldly. “You are still a child, and neither I nor the ministers of this nation will grant you the power to reign until you can display a modicum of decorum.”

Felix sees Dedue whisper something in Dimitri’s ear. The prince does not relax but he does turn away from his uncle. The crowd parts as the prince flees from the room, his loyal manservant behind him.

Cornelia busies herself with appearing startled. Her hand still clutches her chest, and she wavers her lip in a display of fear. Rufus meanwhile straightens his surcoat.

“We will suspend the session for now,” Rufus says. “I believe that tempers need to settle before we can proceed.”

Audible grumbles break out from the cabinet members. The crowds begin to dissipate, chatter buzzing in the room as people process the scene that had just erupted. Felix can only imagine the type of scandal that will ensue. People will gobble up news of a royal spat before they care one whit about the impending war.

Cornelia gestures to her attendants, and she sweeps out of the room, leaving Rufus to collect himself on the throne. Rodrigue watches her leave before making his move.

“One last matter, Lord Regent,” Rodrigue says, a battalion of his partisan allies standing at his back. “Before we depart, I would like to request official approval for the marriage of my son.”

In the Kingdom, the monarch must approve all noble marriages, especially lineages connected with a crest. The formality is one of Felix’s least favorites; it is meant to entrap young nobles within the sphere of their royal influence and ensure that they stay in line to produce another generation of screaming crest babies.

“Oh for goodness sake.” Rufus rubs his face. “I care not for your petty marriages. Fine. Do it.”

“Should we not discuss the matter of his intended?”

Rufus waves him away. “Give the papers to my secretary. I cannot bother with such things at the moment.”

Felix cannot read his father’s face. Suddenly, Rodrigue waves to his attendant. “Kristof, get those papers to the secretary before Cornelia can change his mind.”

“Are you really going through with this, Fraldarius?” Count Conand asks. The Conand lands border Fraldarius, and the two lines have intermarried to the point where the Crest of Fraldarius sometimes manifests in their blood. Rodrigue nods.

“I still think that girl is suspect,” Gautier says.

Felix curls his fist. The cabinet speaks freely of his impending marriage before him as though he does not even exist. He bites his lip, knowing that if he speaks, he will only end up aggravating the Margrave’s opinion of him.

“Ingrid has vouched for her,” Galatea says. “I trust her assessment of the girl’s character.”

Gautier clicks his tongue. “How exactly did you meet this girl, young Lord Felix?”

There is a lot there that Felix can say. That she lost her satchel. That she taught him a disarming move. That they took a reason seminar together, where Hanneman paired them up, and she accidentally burned a hole into his waistcoat that she later insisted on fixing. That he tumbled with her on training mats and taught her how to hold a sword. That she made a game out of trying to get him to smile.

“We met in class,” he says instead, shrugging to make a display of indifference. “Bernadetta always got along well with the Blue Lions. Ask Sylvain.”

“Sylvain would give any pair of firm tits a good character recommendation,” Gautier says coldly. “Are you not convinced that this could have been a ploy on behalf of the Empire? They have already infiltrated our nation in the western holds. What is sending a pretty girl to seduce a Kingdom heir to them?” Dominic mumbles a note of agreement.

Felix clenches his jaw so tightly that it hurts. How dare he. Felix fights to the urge to explain to him just how stupid he thinks that idea sounds. As if Felix is so easily beguiled. As if Bernadetta would ever seduce.

“Look, Bernadetta wants nothing to do with this war,” Felix says. “If I send her to Fraldarius, I can protect her, and if you’re really concerned, my uncle can keep an eye on her. I swear to you, she will not complain.”

Gautier holds his hands up in defeat. “I will defer to you, of course, Fraldarius,” he says to Rodrigue, “Do not expect, however, an invitation for the happy couple to Gautier any time soon. If the girl assassinates you, that’s _your_ problem.”

He moves away. Dominic lingers.

“Please consider that if the West continues to fracture, Fraldarius, my lands will be in a very precarious position,” Dominic says. “I would have preferred an alliance with the west.”

“I am not certain Dominic that we can avoid problems in the West,” Rodrigue says. “I am not trading my son to known dissidents. Gautier can say what he pleases, but that would guarantee a swifter slaughter than the Varley girl.”

Galatea bobs his head in agreement. “She is a good prize.” Felix scowls at the word _prize_. Typical, isn’t it? Children are just cattle to these types. “I would lock it down quickly, if I were you, Fraldarius. I am nervous about the Empire’s next move.”

Rodrigue thanks Galatea. The group disperses, and Felix trails his father back through the halls of the castle. There is much Felix wants to say, but whining about the opinions of overstuffed lords will do nothing to stop their braying.

Instead, he asks, “Why do you think that Cornelia will try to change Rufus’ mind about my marriage?”

“Call it intuition,” Rodrigue says. “You need not worry about it. Rufus has given verbal assent in front of the cabinet, and as all we know, he allows his secretary to make free use of the royal seal. We can have these matters settled in a matter of days.”

That knocks the breath out of Felix’s lungs. In the span of a week, he has gone from single and uninterested to the precipice of marriage. The haste with which Rodrigue works tells Felix that something else is going on, but his father will not speak of it in open halls. He’ll be lucky if his father speaks of it at all. 

“In in the meantime, I will leave it to you to write to your mother about your marriage.”

Felix groans. “Why me?”

“Because if I do it, she will accuse me of excluding her from your wedding,” Rodrigue says. “If you do it, she’ll think it some sort of whimsical fairy tale.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “I don’t think you are allowed to lecture me about marriage considering how little you still understand mother.”

“Perhaps, my boy, that is why I allowed you the luxury of choosing your own bride,” Rodrigue says, “a move which, for the sake of this nation, I hope I will not regret.”

Felix’s stomach sinks. His father’s words hit like a punch to the gut. He hopes that this marriage will not be held over his head. He hopes that he has not doomed them all.

* * *

A fortnight into her residence in Fhirdiad and Bernadetta had already begun to view her little closet as her refuge. While she still technically shares the room with Ingrid, Ingrid always disappears for the day, never returning except to sleep, so Bernadetta becomes mistress of her own space once again. Still, she has nothing with her to occupy her time, except for a few novels that Ingrid brought back and those she had quickly devoured.

Servants occasionally bring her miscellaneous items—a small sewing kit, some paper, and a quill. Bernadetta’s access to such materials depends on her flagging down someone in the narrow corridor outside her room, and most are already engaged serving the more prominent lords of the Castle. She could ask Ingrid, but Ingrid often forgets.

“Scissors?” Ingrid asks this morning as she quickly braids her hair. “I think you can usually find a pair in the kitchens or the library.”

“Um, you don’t think you could bring them back for me, do you?” Bernadetta sits cross-legged on her bed, hugging a pillow to her chest. She’s been using her teeth to snap thread now for a week. Besides, if she can get real scissors, imagine what projects she could do! She might be able to slice up her secondhand clothing and patch something together that actually fits.

“Sylvain and I are training today,” Ingrid sounds annoyed. “Just go down there yourself. It’s not a big deal.”

“Everyone here thinks I’m a spy!” Bernadetta says. “They’ll probably see me and think I’m sneaking around, up to no good! Last thing I need is to give them any more ideas.”

Ingrid shakes her head. “I really doubt that.”

“Ungh!” Bernadetta groans into a pillow and rolls back onto the bed. “I wonder what Felix’s house is like. Will I have to suffer this indignity forever?”

“Aversea?” Ingrid says. “You’ll probably like it. It’s considered a grand estate. Plenty of rooms for you to hide in. But then you’ll have to deal with his family.”

“His family?”

“His uncle lives in a manse on the grounds,” Ingrid says. “And his mother of course manages the estate.”

“What’s she like?”

Ingrid shrugs. “His mother was always a mystery to me. She doesn’t make many appearances in polite society.”

“A…mystery?” Bernadetta does not like the sound of that. “What kind of mystery? The type where there are bones buried in the garden?”

Ingrid laughs. “No. She’s just a bit off is all.” After a moment, Ingrid adds as consolation, “She seems really nice. I think.”

Great. Just what Bernie needs. A mysterious mother in a grand estate. She’s read this book before; it ends with one of them dead.

“I have to go now,” Ingrid says. Before she leaves, she wags her finger at Bernadetta. “Don’t be afraid to leave this room.”

The door shuts. Bernadetta feels a sudden relief, but it is quickly followed by the realization that she does eventually need to leave the room. If not now, then sometime in the future. The longer she waits, the worse it will become.

Besides, it would be nice to have a real project to work on.

Bernadetta waits until midafternoon when she thinks that the traffic in the halls will have petered to a standstill. The Lords will take to arguing with the Regent, and the servants will have disappeared into their secret closets.

Bernadetta slips down the hallway. Now she just has to remember where the library is; Ingrid showed her on the first day, and it had seemed easy enough then.

But as Bernadetta navigates the avenues of the castle, she finds herself hopelessly lost.

 _Great, now you’re really in for it_ , she thinks. _You’re going to accidentally wander into some forbidden wing or confidential meeting, and they’ll really think you’re a spy then!_

She decides to turn around and find her way back, but even that proves to be too difficult. Why do all these walls look the same! Even the portraits stare at her with the same blue eyes and blond hair. Do all the Blaiddyds look like that?

Suddenly, Bernadetta hears voices. She halts and presses herself to the wall before realizing that somebody is just chattering away in an adjacent office. She almost turns to leave until she hears what they are saying.

“An alliance with Leicester would be disastrous for us,” says a cold, female voice. “I want you to ensure that Rufus understands our perspective.”

“Very well,” responds another voice. “And the Varley girl?”

Bernadetta slaps a hand over her mouth. A voice screams in her head to run, but even with her heart racing at ten times its normal speed, she understands that this could be important. This could be about her future.

Glancing side to side, Bernadetta sees no one in the corridor. So, she tiptoes closer to the door.

“Thales needs her to tighten his reign on the brainwashed goddess-fearing masses in the Empire,” the woman says. “But for the time being, so long as she remains in Fhirdiad, I see no problem. Perhaps I shall recommend to Rufus that he makes her my ward.”

Who is this? Whoever it is, Bernadetta certainly does not want to be their ward.

“Rodrigue is vying for her,” says the man. “I would be prepared for him to make a move. They are saying that he will try to force her into marriage with his son.”

“I am not afraid of Rodrigue,” says the woman. “Rufus, on the other hand, better not make any more dumb missteps without our supervision. Make sure he stays in line.”

Footsteps patter down the hall. Shoot. This really does look suspicious! She has no excuse now; she really is eavesdropping.

Bernadetta skitters down the corridor, searching for a nook or a curtain or some other place to hide. The strange conversation is forgotten. All she can think about now is escaping.

“There you are!” says a gruff voice.

Bernadetta shrieks. “I swear! I wasn’t doing anything—oh!” She catches her breath. “Felix! You scared me!”

“What are you doing here?” He crosses his arms. _Oh no, does he think she’s a spy too now?_

“I got lost looking for the library,” Bernadetta says. “I can tell you one thing, that’s the last time I take Ingrid’s advice!”

“I got worried when you weren’t in your room,” Felix says. “We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“It’s fine. It’s just—” Felix shoves a hand into his hair. “I hope you weren’t expecting a long engagement. My father wants to certify the marriage as soon as possible.”

“How soon is that?”

“This weekend.”

A tremor begins in her gut, and soon, every part of her is rattling. She knew that the engagement would be short, but this is even briefer than she had first been told.

“Why so soon?”

“People are worried about the war,” Felix says. “Try not to worry. The sooner we take care of this, the sooner I can send you to Aversea, where you will be safe.”

Bernadetta thinks of the woman in the room, who wanted to make her a ward. She shivers. Perhaps Felix is right. Perhaps this is the best move.

“Until then,” Felix says, “we have to play our cards right. Some people still think you’re an intruder.”

Bernadetta drops her head into her hands. She has just gotten used to the idea of being married, but now it is happening so fast, all to protect her against the dark intentions of the Kingdom’s court. It seems as though no matter what she does, she cannot escape.

“Come on, I’ll show you to the library,” Felix says. He holds out his hand. Bernadetta stares at it like some alien object. “Come _on_. Just try to pretend that we’re a…” His face reddens, and he chokes on his own words. “A…thing. You know. Ugh!” He grabs her hand and entwines her fingers with his. 

Suddenly, Bernadetta feels stupid. This is what he meant by playing their cards right. They have to pretend that they are a couple, marrying not for convenience but for love. Bernadetta must convince them all that she abandoned her country not out of fear for her mother or intrigue in the court but out of genuine affection for Felix. Her head swims even more. Why did they think this could ever work?

Felix holds her hand with a firm grip; her hands immediately begin to sweat. _Goddess, who wants a wife with sweaty hands_ , she thinks. But as he takes her down the twisting hallways, he almost doesn’t seem to mind.

“Oh, and Bernadetta, there’s one more thing,” Felix says. The way he cringes sends a spike of anxiety through her. What could possibly be worse than their present situation? “We have to dine with the court tonight.”

Oh, that is worse indeed.

* * *

By the time that Bernadetta returns from the library with Felix, scissors in hand, a pair of maids have already set up in her room. Ingrid is there as well; she must have also received an invitation, judging by the seafoam green dress that hangs from the window. Bernadetta feels safe enough with Ingrid to whine about the obligation.

“Didn’t you used to dine at the palace in Enbarr?” Ingrid asks as the maids tie her into the gown.

“Me? Oh no!” Bernadetta shakes her head fervently. “My father was unofficially banned from everything but religious ceremonies after an incident with Marquis Vestra.” Bernadetta sits at the edge of her bed as she waits for the maids to finish with Ingrid and begin on her. “And my mother, well, I think she was embarrassed of me. I almost never showed up at court.”

Truthfully, Bernadetta dreads the whole idea of attending court, ever since she was little and would hide under her bed to avoid greeting guests at her mother’s soirees.

“Didn’t you grow up with the other Black Eagles?” Ingrid asks. Of course she would think that. Ingrid has known the Blue Lions all her life. She had childhood friends. Bernadetta had no one save for that boy, Yuri, and what happened to him made her never to want friends again.

Plus, no one wanted their children to be friends with the Varley daughter. Bernadetta can tally off all the various dramas her father has instigated over the years: fights with Hevring over the judiciary, numerous ill-timed offers to buy lands from Bergliez, a misplaced trust in the Nuvelle family shortly before _that_ blew up. Ferdinand believes his father canceled their engagement because young Ferdinand begged him to, but Bernadetta is certain it had something to do with the fact that Duke Aegir and Count Varley once vied for the same mistress.

As one of the maids begins to brush and braid Ingrid’s hair, the other reveals a gown in the same bright teal that festoons the Fraldarius family banner.

“A gift from Duke Fraldarius,” the maid says. The undergarments are incomprehensible to Bernadetta—a short corset with a sharp bone running through the front that gives her breasts a look that Dorothea once called “heaving.” Her posture immediately straightens as the maid ties the laces. Next is the gown. Fine silk cools her skin as it drapes over her body. 

Soon, they scoot her in front of a mirror where their combs and irons tear at her hair. As a child, the hairdresser always terrified Bernadetta with their poking pins and snarling combs. As an adult, she wills herself to sit quietly. She can’t freak out yet. There’s a whole evening ahead of her.

When they are done, her hair stands straight as a pin, strands pulled back from her face with a pearl clasp.

A knock comes at the door. Felix stands in the doorway.

“Hey.” He wears a teal surcoat over a dark tunic, both stitched from far finer materials than she has ever seen him don before. Someone has convinced to brush his hair, although he still stuffs it back into a bun. He looks Bernadetta once over. “You look…different.”

“Is it bad?” Bernadetta shrinks.

“What he means,” Ingrid says sharply, glowering at Felix, “is that you look really lovely tonight.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. You look really…pretty.” He says the word “pretty” as though it is from a foreign language and he is not quite certain how to pronounce it. Ingrid rolls her eyes, but they roll even harder once Sylvain waltzes into the room.

“Wow, Bernadetta, look at you, you sly little fox! You know how to clean up.” Sylvain cries. Ingrid knocks a fist against his shoulder. “Whoops, sorry Felix, for hitting on your, what was it again, _fiancée_?”

“Sylvain,” Ingrid says in warning, before even Felix has a chance to.

Sylvain grins at her. He turns around and smiles at Bernie. “Hey Bernie, I know you’re used to really charming cool rakes like myself, but…” his voice suddenly lowers dangerously, and Bernadetta is not certain she has ever heard him speak so seriously, “ _stay away from Rufus_.”

“The Lord Regent?” Bernadetta asks.

“It’ll be fine,” Felix says. “She’ll be with me all night.”

“What’s wrong with the Lord Regent?” Bernadetta asks, her heart already chugging at a rapid pace.

“He’s a creep.” Felix holds out his arm at an awkward angle. “We should go now. The sooner we make an appearance, the sooner we can leave.” Bernadetta slips her hand into the crook of his elbow.

Sylvain and Ingrid sweep out of the room ahead of them. Bernadetta needs a moment to collect herself. This is her first appearance in Faerghus society. It is her first appearance in any society technically.

Perhaps to calm her, Felix says, “You do look really nice. I was just surprised I guess to see you with your hair like that.”

“It’s okay,” Bernadetta says, as they pass out into the hall. “You look good. I’ve never seen you outside of your school uniform.”

“Would it surprise you if I told you I didn’t pick out this outfit?”

“I didn’t pick this one either. I really don’t think teal is my color. Will that be a problem with your family?”

“I couldn’t care less what color you wear.”

Bernadetta has never walked arm in arm with a man before. In books, it seems so romantic—step in step, heartbeats united— yet now she stumbles to keep up with his jarring pace and her arm keeps slipping from his elbow.

“What can we expect in there?” she asks nervously.

“Apertifs first,” Felix says. “And then dinner. Afterwards, the men will go to billiards, and the women to…whatever it is that the women do. That’s usually when I make my escape anyways.”

“Take me with you?”

She thinks she hears a chuckle. “Pretty scandalous, us disappearing like that.”

“We’re supposed to be in love and getting married,” Bernadetta says. “People might expect us to disappear.”

The corridor eventually snakes towards the Great Hall, and noises echoes amongst the steepled ceilings. Bernadetta tightens her grip on Felix. Suddenly, Bernadetta cannot breathe, and her nerves rush her with dread and anxiety and fear all at once until the only thing that keeps her from running is Felix’s arm woven around hers.

“Relax,” Felix murmurs to her. “If you’re nervous, they might think something is wrong.”

“Now I feel more nervous!” Bernadetta cries. “Do we have to do this?”

Felix bends to whisper in her ear. “You have fought battles and faced down monsters. You had the courage to run away from your family and your nation. This is nothing. You’re braver than you think.”

Bernadetta turns her face up to his. He appears as serious as ever, but their proximity gives Bernadetta new perspective. His eyes crinkle just slightly at the corners, and far from scowling or frowning, his lips maintain a straight line—not approval but not displeasure either.

“Thank you, Felix,” Bernadetta says. “I always knew you were a softy under there.” She thinks she sees him blush, but he turns his head away, so she can’t be certain. “All right. Let’s do this.”

Apertifs were served in a chamber adjacent to the banquet hall. Everyone there appears very important, dripping in ermine and chains of command. Bernadetta feels herself drive closer to Felix’s side. Heads turned as they passed through the chambers. How menacingly they drank their sherry, studying her over their crystal-cut glasses.

Their gazes roll off Felix as easily as rain. Rodrigue catches sight of them and waves them over, his cheeks already pinked with sherry.

“Lord Regent, I believe I mentioned the matter of my son’s engagement,” he says to a man reclining by the fire. The Lord Regent looks torn straight from one of the many Blaiddyd portraits: ashen blond hair fading to gray and eyes so blue they glow. Bernadetta recalls Sylvain’s advice: _stay away from Rufus._

Bernadetta does not like the way he studies her, his eyes never lingering on her face but rather trailing downwards.

“You look young,” Rufus says. “How old are you girl?”

Naturally, that comment makes her flinch. Never a good sign when a man comments on a young maiden’s age. What a lech! She has read stories about kings that try to steal the young brides of lords. Rufus is unmarried, right? He better not get any ideas!

“Bernadetta!” Felix hisses.

“Oh, um, I’m eighteen,” Bernadetta says. Her hands curls so tightly now around Felix’s arm that she can feel the silk unravel beneath her fingernails.

“Where are you from again?” he asks. “The Empire, right?”

“Varley, sir.”

“Oh, you’re the one Cornelia was on about,” Rufus says. “She seems concerned that you were brought here against your will.”

Bernadetta shakes her head so fervently that the pearl clasp loosens. With a gasp, she tries to catch it in her hand. _Not a good first impression_ , she thinks. _They’ll want nothing to do with her now_.

Felix’s mouth twists open, ready for some hot retort, but Rodrigue quickly soothes it over.

“A funny story actually, Rufus,” Rodrigue says. “My son confesses that he was planning to elope with her before the war.”

“Father!” Felix snaps. His ears have gone red.

Rufus bursts into laughter. “I will say, Felix, there is still time. The biggest mistake I ever made was not eloping. I introduced her to my father instead.”

One of the lords behind Rufus groans and shakes his head. “For goodness sake, Rufus, not this again.”

“My father agreed that she would make a fine wife. Too fine for a crestless son, so he gave her to my brother instead.”

 _He must be talking about Dimitri’s mother_ , Bernadetta realizes with a flush of heat. Perhaps the lords are just as bad in the Kingdom as they are in the Empire.

Rodrigue coughs nervously. “Felix, Bernadetta looks parched. Perhaps you ought to get her a drink.”

Felix accepts the sign and tugs Bernadetta away from Rufus. They find a servant pouring sherry. Bernadetta has never drunk sherry before. It hits sweet and powerful on her tongue. They stand to the side of the room, watching the crowd without engaging. Felix does not say a word to her. Finally, Bernadetta can relax. 

At dinner, she is seated with a familiar crowd. Felix sits to one side of her, across from Dimitri and Sylvain. Ingrid is a few seats down. The chair next to Bernadetta stands empty, a fact that makes her increasingly anxious until Dedue slides in beside her.

“Oh thank goodness it is you,” Bernadetta says. “I was worried that they would put me next to a stranger.”

“I am only here on the grace of his highness,” Dedue says. “I am not usually permitted to come to such events.”

Bernadetta glances over at Dimitri. He stares at his plate, not reacting as Sylvain tries to coax him to take a drink.

“You should sit beside him,” Bernadetta says. “I’m sure Sylvain will trade seats.”

“That is not how matters are done here,” Dedue says. “In fact, Bernadetta, I would urge you not to associate with me. If you are seen speaking to a man of Duscur, it could affect your already precarious position in court.”

“My what?”

“Ah, my apologies.” Dedue shakes his head. “I did not mean to offend. Only that—”

“I understand,” Bernadetta says. “I’m a stranger here too, you know.”

Dedue’s face softens just a twitch. “You will manage. I have confidence in you.”

It is the nicest thing—and the only thing—that Dedue says to her all evening. Bernadetta turns back to Felix, who is actively ignoring the woman prattling to his left. Bernadetta takes another heavy sip of sherry before extending her hand and squeaking—

“Hello, I’m—”

“Oh, yes, this is your little war bride, isn’t it, Lord Felix?” says the woman. “Tell me truly, darling, I hear you were snatched from a battle. Is that true? You must be so frightened.”

Oh, goddess. Oh, Sothis. Oh, Seiros and the four Saints.

 _You will manage,_ Bernadetta thinks. _You are young lovers. You were going to elope. Remember that you are an item._ The sherry fills her with bubbling confidence. She polishes off the last of her drink before making her move. 

“Actually—” One hand slips into his under the table and she brushes the other hand along his shoulder. As she does so, her body leans forward into his arm. The sherry has quieted the part of her brain that would fear the spill of her heaving breasts, but somewhere in the haze, she hears the voice faintly warn. “Felix rescued me.” His head turns toward her, and she reads curiosity in his expression. “My mother locked away my father away in the tallest tower in Varley, and I fear she would do the same for me if I returned to the Empire.”

The woman bats her fan against Felix’s shoulder. “So it’s true. You were going to elope.” She laughs obnoxiously. “I hardly believed it when I heard that our Felix was seduced by an Imperial girl.”

Wait, _what? Seduced?_

Bernadetta rears back in her fluster. Her mouths fall open in shock. The woman is supposed to think they’re in love; instead, she thinks Bernadetta a loose woman!

“Lady Bertrand, that is enough,” Felix says.

“All I am saying is that one must merely wonder about the haste with which your father is conducting this marriage,” Lady Bertrand sings. Her hand pats her belly. The implication jolts Bernadetta.

Bernadetta feels so embarrassed she cannot speak. A servant has already refilled her glass, and she drinks to quell the shake in her body.

“Lady Bertrand!” Sylvain cuts in, a quick rescue. “I’ve heard you’ve been spending quite a bit of time up with Sir Regus and his wife up in the Rhodos Coast. Or was it just Sir Regus? I can’t remember.”

The intrusion gives Felix a chance to swivel in his chair to face Bernadetta.

“Can we leave yet?” Bernadetta asks, actively fighting off tears. These vipers! If she starts bawling in front of them, what will they say then?

“Bernie,” Felix whispers into her ear. “Give them no heed. They’re bored, lazy aristocrats. They have nothing better to do than gossip.”

Bernadetta inhales deeply to settle her nerves. It’s not working.

“I need a moment,” she says, dropping her napkin on the table and sliding out of her chair. She can feel the eyes burn her back as she escapes from the great hall.

Bernadetta flees into the corridor. It is much quieter here now that everyone sups. She braces herself against a windowsill, brow pressed against the cold glass. Her legs tremble, and the sherry makes her empty stomach heave.

Footsteps close in behind her. Bernadetta waits and hopes that they pass her by. Instead, she hears Felix’s familiar voice.

“Hey—"

“I just need a moment,” Bernadetta says. Her breath clouds the glass. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. I know you need a bride who can deal with these things, and I’ll do it. I swear. I just need—”

“You know what,” Felix says, “Let’s just get out of here.”

The statement almost shocks Bernadetta. She turns around to face him. “You’re not going to force me to go back in there?”

Felix shakes his head. “I don’t want to be in there with Lady Bertrand any more than you do. It’s clear that we can’t win. Show too much affection, and you’re a spy that seduced me. Show not enough and I’ve kidnapped you. These types will never stop. It’s best just to ignore them.”

“What are we going to do then?”

Felix shrugs. “I don’t know. Go to the kitchens to find some real food.”

“No, I mean with all of…of _this_.” Bernadetta gestures wildly around.

“Look, it’ll be over in a few days. Once the wedding goes through, there’s not much they can do to stop it. So just hang in there, all right? They’ll get bored eventually and move onto something else.”

Bernadetta remembers what Dedue says. Everything little thing has the possibility to dent her already broken reputation. Felix gestures for her to follow. Bernadetta scrubs her eyes dry with her sleeve and follows.

As they walk away from the Great Hall, Bernadetta reaches out for Felix’s arm, wanting to curl back into his side for warmth, but with no one around, he does not offer it.

Bernadetta steps back and remembers where she is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know when you guys signed up for an arranged marriage, what you really wanted was a complex analysis of timeskip Faerghus political situation. Alas, things are not going to be looking up for our dear friends Dimitri and Dedue, and Felix and Bernadetta are along for the ride. 
> 
> Next chapter: the wedding (and the wedding night!)!
> 
> Thanks for the wonderful comments and kudos so far! I love reading them all!


	3. Over the Threshold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a rushed wedding on the eve of war, Felix and Bernadetta must finally confront what it means to be married. But their wedding does not solve as many problems as they might hope. As Cornelia tightens her grip on Rufus and Dimitri, Rodrigue comes up with a plan...

“You’re getting married. Wow.” Sylvain tightens the cravat around his neck and laughs. “I never thought you would be the first to get married. Ingrid definitely. Or Dimitri. But you?”

Felix ignores the sudden upsurge of anxiety. He roots around the vanity for the cuffs that his father gave him, but his hand trembles so hard he can barely pick one up. 

“I don’t see why that’s such a surprise.”

“I don’t know. Probably has something to do with the fact that just a few weeks ago, you were asking for my advice on how to ask the girl out.” Felix’s face burns. That seems like a distant memory. Hell, it no longer feels like his own life—just a cheesy passage out of someone’s else story. “I see you skipped right over dinner though and went straight for the ring.”

“It can’t be helped.” Felix fumbles with pinning the cuff through his sleeve. “This is the best option for both of us.”

“If you say so.”

Felix cannot stand the telling tone of his voice. But it doesn’t matter. In about thirty minutes, he will suffer through the ceremony, and then it will be done. Once they are married, he can send her to Aversea, where she will be safe, and he can continue with the war efforts.

“The Empire will attack us soon,” Felix says. “We do not have the luxury of choice here. Best to marry someone who I can tolerate than have to get wrapped in more of my father’s politics.”

“Tolerate? Heh. The Felix I spoke to four weeks ago more tolerated her.”

Felix groans. “The Felix four weeks ago wasn’t about to ship out to battle. I like Bernadetta. I wish this could have turned out differently. I wish this were the ending where I took her out to tea and beat up her dad. But the most important thing right now is protecting her. The fucked up thing is, I can’t protect her and be a good husband at the same time. I have to leave. I have to go out there and fight.”

Anything else is a distraction that Felix doesn’t need. If he survives this war, then maybe he can think about his marriage. It is a good thing that Bernadetta is on the same page, he thinks. She’ll enjoy Aversea. His mother doesn’t entertain guests, and his uncle is too distracted with the local militia to care about Bernadetta.

Sylvain contemplates Felix’s declaration for a moment. “Wow,” he says. “I’m starting to believe Felix four weeks ago was a little bit more head over heels than I originally thought.”

“What would you do?”

“Not get married.”

Felix doesn’t get a chance to even scoff, for the door opens and Rodrigue enters.

“Felix, this is a big day for you,” Rodrigue says, smiling. “I wish it could happen under better circumstances. That you could have a proper wedding, with your mother here and your bride’s family.”

That sounds exactly like the sort of affair that Felix would have loathed, but he keeps this to himself.

“I never thought this day would come so soon,” Rodrigue continues, “and I want you to know I am proud of you for making this decision.” Felix seethes with irritation. Another one of his father’s famous speeches. “You are a private person, a fact which I try to respect, but I hope you understand that your wife is the one from whom nothing can be kept. I hope that you will learn to open up to her.”

“Is that it?”

“I suppose. Are you ready?”

Although Felix tempers his expression with the same intensity as ever, inside, everything flutters and churns. He follows Rodrigue to the Chapel, Sylvain at his heels.

Only a few familiar faces attend the wedding—most of them noble members of the cabinet. Ingrid is there, but Dimitri is missing. _Whatever. Not like I expected to boar to come anyways,_ Felix thinks, ignoring the flinch caused by his absence. 

There is no bridal procession; no parties of grooms or maids. A single stands at the altar with Bernadetta. A veil conceals her face, but Felix knows that if he saw her face, she would probably be closing her eyes or biting her lip.

As Felix tugs the veil from over her face, the gravity of his actions suddenly overwhelms him. Stunned to the spot, he realizes just what exactly it means for him to take the move. Bernadetta stares at him, as if she will lose sight of the shore if she so much as blinks.

He bends down to kiss her on the cheek, as is expected of him. There he lingers. They will think he whispers sweet nothings. Instead, he says:

“If you don’t want to do this, you can still back out.”

Bernadetta gives a quick shake of her head. That’s all the communication they are allowed before the priest begins droning prayers.

Felix has been to many weddings. None felt so quick as his own. In a blur, he echoed the vows and pecked Bernadetta so innocently on the lips that he couldn’t even call it a proper kiss. Suddenly, a pack of feral nobles herded them to the registry book where they witnessed Felix and Bernadetta sign their names. Rodrigue and Count Galatea acted as witnesses. The priest shut the book, and it was over.

That is that.

They are married now.

Felix does not feel much different, except his nerves have burst into full-fledged panic—to the point where he might almost call it regret. Bernadetta squeezes his hand so tightly, it might fall clean off.

When the deed has finished, the cabinet regathers to whisper amongst themselves. Ingrid comes over to offer her well-wishes, whereas Sylvain lingers behind and mutters a bland congratulations.

“Dimitri sends his blessings,” Ingrid says. “He really wished that he could have been here.” Felix does not register it, but he must have made some sort of expression because Ingrid’s face flashes. “He really did, Felix. But…” Her voice lowers, “He just felt that with the situation with Cornelia and Rufus that his presence might bring unwanted attention.”

“I get it,” Felix says. “I don’t care anyways.”

Ingrid ducks to a pew where she grabs a lacquer case, inset with a mother-of-pearl crest of Fraldarius. “This is from Dimitri.”

Felix frowns. When did Dimitri find time to purchase such an elaborate gift? Perhaps he has Dedue to thank for this. Despite his cynical thoughts, he accepts the case without snide comment and holds it so that Bernadetta can lift up the top. Inside, on a bed of blue velvet, sit two daggers.

“Of course,” Felix intones, “his go-to present.”

“His-and-her knives,” Sylvain chuckles. “How romantic.”

“Um, wow, these are, uh, really nice.” Bernadetta forces a smile. “Is this a normal wedding present in Faerghus?”

“It’s normal for Dimitri,” Sylvain says. “Well, sorry that we can’t throw a party, but knowing you two, you’d probably prefer it this way.”

Felix shrugs. “Whatever. It’s over. Now we can relax.”

“No, now you can really enjoy yourself,” Sylvain says, wagging his eyebrow. “Best present of all. Get to go straight to the—ow!” Ingrid twists his ear. “What was that for?”

“I know what you were going to say,” she hisses.

It takes Felix a minute, but then he realizes with a flush too what Sylvain was going to say. In the bluster surrounding the ceremony, he had forgotten about what happens _after_ the wedding.

His face grows hot, and he realizes that although the wedding has ended, the performance has just begun.

* * *

That night—on her wedding night of all nights—, Bernadetta stands in the boudoir of her marital chamber, desperately attempting to breathe despite the fear that pulses through her body. She has long dismissed her maids. She just needs to summon the courage to open the door to her bedroom and confront her husband.

 _You agreed to this_ , she reminds herself. _This is for your own good!_

But she cannot deny that locking herself in the boudoir sounds increasingly appealing. There’s an upholstered chaise here and a soft woolen throw. She could sleep here all night unbothered.

 _No, he’s waiting for you,_ Bernadetta thinks. _Don’t be ungrateful._

The only reason she’s standing here is because of this marriage. The only thing protecting her from her mother’s agents is this marriage. Her only escape from the war is _this marriage._

But she also knows what waits on the other side. She recalls her father’s sermons on a woman’s marital duty and all the forbidden novels she had started reading the second she came to Garreg Mach.

Felix will be kind, she thinks, and gentle and understanding. He acts brusque, but Bernadetta has learned to see through that. Still, whatever lays behind the door terrifies her.

_It’s time. Just do it, Bernie!_

Bernadetta takes a hearty breath and pushes the door open to her marital chamber.

* * *

Felix waits for his wife in their bedroom. The word does not feel real to him. _Wife._ In some ways, it had been his ideal: a swift ceremony with neither pomp nor overwrought formality. No reception. No blathering nobles. No feigned gratitude for needless gifts. Just a few witnesses and a signature in the register.

Still, Felix cannot wrap his head around the idea. _Wife_. He is married now. This whole thing had been his idea, yet the second his father acquiesced, the whole situation had been yanked from his hands.

 _Wife._ He had sworn never to get to this point.

The candle burns low while Felix waits for Bernadetta to emerge from the boudoir. What will happen when she exits, he does not know. He understands the expectations hanging over his head, but theirs is a marriage of convenience. It matters not so long as the mouth-breathers in court are convinced that the deed has been done.

The door creaks open. Bernadetta marches out of the boudoir, her gaze firmly planted the ground, hands fisted tightly. Bernadetta’s white nightgown pools around her feet. Each time the too-loose straps slips from her shoulder, she furiously shoves them back up her arms.

“Bernadetta,” Felix says. She does not lift her head. “ _Bernadetta_. Relax. I’m not going to do anything.” Only now does her head lift. “But you have to understand, right, that if they ask, you tell them the marriage was consummated.”

Bernadetta bites her lip. “Oh, um, is that really okay?”

Felix shrugs. “I told you. I don’t care about having a wife. I’m not going to force you to do anything.”

Bernadetta release a whoosh of air, and with it, all of her fears shoot out of her body. There’s a physical slump, a limpness so sudden in her movement that Felix worries that she might collapse.

“So, uh, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. Go to sleep?”

“Um, if it’s all right with you, I’ll sleep in the boudoir. There’s a chaise there—”

“Look, I’ll stick to my side of the bed. It’ll be fine.” Bernadetta takes a wary step backwards. Felix wonders if she’s about to make a break for the door. “It has to be convincing. We can’t have the servants finding you in the boudoir in the morning.”

Bernadetta nods. “I know, I know. You’re my husband. The least I can do is share a bed, right?” Bernadetta squares her shoulders and purses her lips. Felix has seen this expression before. It is the same one she wears before battle to hype herself up.

She marches herself to the edge of the bed and shimmies under the covers. She pulls the quilt so far up that it covers her head. “Oh, well, goodnight then.”

It still does not feel real. Not even seeing Bernadetta’s lump under the covers makes this real to Felix. He takes his position on the opposite edge of the bed. He manages to doze off for a moment. His body curls so close to the edge that when he does doze off, he dreams of tumbling over the edge, and it makes him wake in a start.

Judging by the ragged breathing on the other side of the bed, Bernadetta is still awake too. Felix rolls over and tries to discern her shape in the darkness. Her back faces him, an irregular lump barely limned by the moonlight. Little tremors run through the mattress, feeding off the nervous shake of her body.

If Felix couldn’t sleep before, he definitely cannot now.

Part of him feels guilt. He pressured her into this decision, a decision she wasn’t ready for. It was selfish—entirely selfish, nothing more than a way for him to escape the Mateus affair. Perhaps he should have searched harder for other ways to protect her in Faerghus.

Deep down inside, he knows that there were none.

“Hey,” he says, already cringing at the sound of his voice, “look, I’m sorry that I dragged you into this, all right?”

The bedsheets rustle as Bernadetta turns. “What?”

“It’s not fair to you. I get that. So I’m sorry.” There, he had said it. Somehow, he felt as though it might not go over well.

“Oh, um, thanks,” Bernadetta’s voice warbles. Goddess, she’s on the verge of tears, he thinks. He’s heard of weeping brides, but usually that came from some sort of joy, not dread. Were he not forced to share a bed with her, he might have ignored it, but their proximity challenges his ability to shut it out. Worse, he knew he would be in store for weeks of it, if not months, if not an entire marriage.

“Look, what can I do to make you feel better?” Felix asks. “I don’t want you to be mad at me. I know I promised I wouldn’t make you miserable, but I’m doing a pretty shit job so far.”

Bernadetta’s sighs. Even her breath carries a vibrato of pain. “I’m not mad at you, you know,” she says shakily. “I’m just sad. I lost everything. My sanctuary. My friends. My home. All my belongings.” Felix notes how she does not say her family. “And no one here trusts me! And if I don’t do things exactly right, they’ll chop my head off!”

If only they could have run off together. There would be none of this marriage bullshit. No court intrigue, nothing to prove to anyone. But Felix cannot escape this war. The battles call to him. He knows what he must do.

“Look, they’ll all give up on in a few weeks. They’ll move onto the next scandal. You have nothing to worry about because you’re not guilty of anything.”

“Yeah but…” Bernadetta’s breathing grows labored. “They expect things out of newlyweds. What if they expect us to kiss? I’ve never been kissed! What if I do it wrong, and all suddenly realize that I’m an imposter?”

Felix scoffs. “That’s dumb. You can’t kiss wrong.”

“Says you! You’re probably all sorts of experienced! I saw how you went out with Sylvain. You probably had girls left and right!”

“Please, you give him too much credit. Besides, I just kissed you at the wedding.”

“That wasn’t a kiss!” Bernadetta says. “I mean, shoot, don’t be offended! I don’t mean that it was bad but…I need to know how to make them think that I’m in love with you but not a seductress or a spy and—"

“Fine!” Felix throws the covers off of him. “Come here. We’ll fix this.”

“Um…what?” Her pitch swings upwards to a tone that only dogs can hear.

Felix walks around the edge of the bed—the long way, so that she cannot accuse him of any indecent behavior. He stands at the foot of the bed and gestures in front of him.

“Come here,” he says. Bernadetta weaves herself into the quilt as she slides out of bed. A little Bernie cocoon huddles before him.

Felix very nearly loses his cool. Twenty seconds ago, this seemed very simple: kiss her and she’ll go to sleep. Now, as she stares up at him expectantly, gray eyes melding into the shadows around her, Felix realizes that this is about to get very, very complicated.

She is right. They would have to kiss. Even the blandest of couples gave obligated kisses to their spouses. There would be kisses in the morning. Parting kisses when he left home. Kisses on the hands before dances. Kisses on the cheek to please elderly relatives.

If Felix did not kiss his new bride, others might become suspicious.

He plants his hands on her shoulders. Her shoulders curl inward. How is this suddenly so difficult?

 _Steel yourself_ , he thinks. So he ducks his face down and presses his lips to hers.

Her mouth remains tightly clamped. It feels like kissing a rock. When he parts, he realizes that her eyes are tightly squeezed shut.

“Relax,” he tells her, “or this isn’t going to work.”

Bernadetta nods, but the eyes stay closed.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, a bitter edge to his tone. “Just move your lips and kiss me back.”

More nodding. More closed eyes.

Felix tries again, brushing his lips against hers. This time, she responds with a slight pout. It is enough for him to latch onto.

“Was that okay? Did I do it right?”

“Yeah, it was fine. More than enough to convince them.”

“Are you sure? That didn’t feel like it should. Nothing like it says in books.”

“Well, books are lies.”

“You’d think they’d get this part right! They all talk about sliding velvet and twining tongues.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “We won’t need to Adrestian kiss in front of the court.”

“An Adrestian kiss?”

Oh, _come on_. Felix knows the types of books she’s read. He can’t be the one to explain this to her.

“Use your imagination.” He traipses back to the bed. “Are we done now?”

“Wait!” She grabs his sleeve. In doing so, the quilt slips off her body and winds around her legs. She stumbles forward and catches in his arms. She no longer minds, it seems, that her nightgown slips down her arms or that she closes the distance between them. Her eyes blaze with that resolute expression. Although she does not speak, he can almost hear her pep herself: _Bernie, you’ve got this._

She grasps his face in her hands and pulls him down to her level. This time, she initiates. 

It is not the kiss that consumes Felix. It is everything that accompanies the kiss. The curves of her body pressing into his, the thin nightgown reminding him what lies underneath. The feel of her small, delicate hands clasping in his loose hair.

Out of instinct, Felix opens his mouth against hers. She responds in kind, the slant of her body doing strange things to his own. He tightens the grip around her back, his other hand looping behind her neck to angle her head better against his.

Suddenly, she parts. “All right,” she says. “Now we’re done.”

She collects the quilt off the ground and returns to bed, leaving a very flustered Felix standing alone in the dark. 

* * *

Felix sleeps without a shirt. In her fluster and panic the previous night, Bernadetta had failed to realize this. But her first sight upon waking up the next morning is the grooved plane of his abdomen. The blanket snags along his feet, and Bernadetta wonders if he slept the night without it. Her attention catches the scars tracing the dip of his muscles. Her face heats, and she glances away, as if she studies something profane and not the body of her husband.

Bernadetta never sleeps well in an unfamiliar room. Although still early, her whole body feels awake. The previous day blurs. All she suddenly can think about is kissing Felix in the darkness of their room. The kiss had been so unlike anything she expected. The first one was awkward and stilted, but the last one…the one she had felt something curl inside of her with blissful heat.

But Felix does not want a wife. He wants nothing to do with her. His whole plan is to send her away to Aversea where he can forget about her.

Certainly, he didn’t seem to enjoy kissing her last night. Could he have been _more_ eager to go back to bed? Bernadetta is not even sure why this bothers her, but sure enough, there’s a big whole knot of tension and dismay tangling up inside of her. 

So Felix may not want a wife. There is one thing, however, that she knows he does want.

To distract herself, Bernadetta slips out of bed. She finds where Felix has discarded his shirt. She knows he must hate it. It drapes too heavily on his shoulders, and there’s a ruff stitched around the collar that he kept tugging at last night. Bernadetta studies the stitches to see if she can rip the adornment out. 

Of course, she has no sewing kit here. Her box of spools and yarn remains back in the rubble of Garreg Mach, along with all of her treasured animals, her beloved plants, and her library of books. Her stories are burned to ashes. Her instruments and pigments likely looted.

 _Don’t cry,_ she tells herself, _not again._

Felix wiggles in the bed. Bernadetta glances over. His feet kick away the last of the blanket. Bernadetta decides to sneak back into the boudoir to see if she can find some needles and thread. In the Empire, it is standard kit for a woman’s boudoir, and besides, she should probably dress before Felix wakes and sees her like this. No sooner is her hand on the door, however, then he hears Felix speak.

“What are you doing with my shirt?”

“Hm? Oh! Uh, nothing. I was looking for a sewing kit to fix it up.”

Felix sits up in the bed rubbing his eyes. His disheveled hair hangs loose around his face. “This early?”

“I have nothing else to do,” Bernadetta says. “Besides, I know you only married me to mend your clothing.”

Felix swings his legs over the side of the bed. “Well, that’s why they call it a marriage of convenience.” Bernadetta pouts, and she catches a smirk on his face. So he is not angry for last night. Good. It almost lets her relax. “But don’t worry about the clothes. We can get someone to take care of that.”

He approaches her, bare-chested and nonchalant. Yawning, he takes the shirt from her hands. “You should rest while you can. I have a bad feeling about how things are blowing up in the court.”

“How long are we going to be in the castle?”

Felix shrugs. “I don’t know, but it makes me antsy. I’m going to find you a bow. You should keep training, just in case.” _Oooh, Bernie,_ that makes her sweat. “I think we’re expected to suffer through breakfast first. My father and the other cabinet members wish to extend their official congratulations.”

“Uh, do we have to go? I mean, it is the morning after our wedding. Don’t we have babies to make or something?”

Felix chokes, and his eyes bulge. Bernadetta is not sure if the joke has gone too far, but a second later, he chuckles. He ruffles her hair.

“You know what, you’re right. We—"

But their chat is cut short by a pounding on the door. Bernadetta’s immediate instinct is to find some place to hide in the room, but they’re safe, as long as the door is locked, right?

Almost as soon as she thinks it, the lock turns, and the door swings open. Bernadetta shrieks and dodges behind Felix, who stands stupefied with his shirt in his hands as Cornelia Arnim marches into their bedroom.

“Lady Bernadetta, come with me at once,” Cornelia says, a keyring jangling in her hands.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Young Fraldarius,” Cornelia purrs. “If you are smart, you will stand aside.”

Bernadetta forgets that he is shirtless. Instead, she weaves her arms around his torso to anchor herself to him. His body blazes warm as a furnace.

“You march into my room the morning after my wedding—”

“As a noble member of this court, you failed to receive proper permission from the Crown for your nuptials.”

“Rufus approved. We have his seal,” Felix says.

“That is because he did not have an opportunity to consider matters,” Cornelia says. “Now that he has had time to think over it, he rescinds his approval.”

“You can’t do that _after_ the marriage!”

Bernadetta begins to understand why their marriage had been rushed. Did Rodrigue know about this awful lady? Her mind reels backwards to the conversation she overheard; the voice seems very similar. Is this the same woman?

“What is the matter here?” Rodrigue asks, stepping into the room. Margrave Gautier and Count Galatea join him. The whole court will see Bernadetta in her bed clothes at this rate.

“You have played an extraordinarily sly hand, your grace,” Cornelia says. “Conducting this marriage so quickly and with specious authority. Unfortunately for you, your little tactics will not succeed. I must wonder at what your precise intention is with such a maneuver. Here, we should be brokering peace, and you allow a move that will engender further war and chaos.”

Rodrigue crosses his arms. “For the sake of Sothis, let us discuss this in my office like civil people, not in my son’s marital chambers.”

“I must insist on taking Lady Bernadetta with me,” Cornelia says. “Abducting the heiress of Varley in middle of a battle and forcing her into a marriage is a low move, even for you Rodrigue.”

“She doesn’t look like an unwilling captive to me,” Galatea says. Bernadetta tightens her grip on Felix.

“This will stoke the flames of war,” Cornelia says. “Give the girl back to her parents, and perhaps we can negotiate with them. But this little strategy of yours is only to incite further conflict between the Empire and the Kingdom.”

“In. My. Office,” Rodrigue repeats. Cornelia sighs. A well-manicured finger twists a lock of strawberry-blond hair as she looks between the lords.

“Very well,” she sighs. “But mark my words, Rodrigue, this marriage will be annulled.”

Rodrigue waits for her to leave the room. Felix quickly shrugs on the shirt, forcing Bernadetta to relinquish her iron grip on him. When he tries to follow Rodrigue, his father holds out a hand.

“Tend to your bride,” he says. “I will take care of this.”

The door shuts. Felix curses.

“What the fuck was that about?”

“Annul the marriage? Can she do that?”

Felix shrugs. “Even if we didn’t have Rufus’ seal, people elope all the time and all that happens is they get barred from court for a year. This is ridiculous.” He shoves a hand through his hair. “What is Cornelia getting at? I don’t understand why she would care.”

“Why does she want to send me back to my parents?”

Felix groans and kicks the air. “Unbelievable. I should be there. I don’t know what my father expects me to do in here.”

The idea of returning to the Empire now fills Bernadetta with dread. What would her mother do to her after she had defected? Would she be sent to house arrest at the summer Varley estate with her father? Or would she forced to be her mother’s Enbarr puppet?

The thought is terrifying. Bernadetta can only imagine the force of her parents’ ire when she returns to them. Even in captivity, she knows her father would rampage if he discovered that she married (and divorced!) without his approval. Her mother, on the other hand, would likely feel more betrayed by her defection the Kingdom. Her mother is too shrewd to believe Bernie was abducted.

The idea is so terrifying that it makes Bernadetta freeze to the spot. Her mind envisions her childhood terrors—tied into chairs, locked into closets, forced to stand for hours with a teacup balanced on her head. She thinks of her mother’s cruel words and her father’s crueler hands.

“Bernadetta.” Felix’s voice sounds dreamy and distant. “Bernadetta!” He seizes her shoulders. Bernadetta glances up at him. “Don’t freak out yet. Nothing will probably come of this.” He finishes buttoning up his shirt. “But I’m going to take care of this.”

“What should I do?” she asks

Felix speaks the only words that soothe her soul. “Stay here. And don’t let anyone in.”

* * *

By the time, Felix reaches his father’s office, the meeting has concluded. Rodrigue waves Felix into the room. As a member of the Regent’s cabinet, Rodrigue maintains his office in the castle grounds.

“That was fast,” Felix says.

“Cornelia had no interest in discussing the matter,” Rodrigue says. “I am afraid that she will not budge on the issue.”

“Why does Cornelia care?”

Rodrigue steeples his hands over his desk. “It is curious, it is not? Varley is a good prize. You would think she would be content to have her on our side.”

“She is not a prize,” Felix sneers.

“Politically speaking, she is,” Rodrigue says. “Whether you wish to acknowledge that or not. Cornelia’s assertion that we have abducted Bernadetta may prove to be a pernicious thorn in our side. A propaganda against us.”

“How can Cornelia believe that?” Felix asks.

“She doesn’t,” Rodrigue says. “But others may.”

Felix chews on what his father is saying. The central question remains: why? 

“Do you think there is a possibility that Cornelia will side with the western lords?” Felix asks.

“On the one hand, she is a loyal servant of the Crown with a long history in the court. On the other hand...” Rodrigue rubs his hands together, “if she wanted something to prove to the Empire, returning Bernadetta may do the trick. Of course, we have nothing to fear from Cornelia yet. She controls the regent but not the cabinet. She may believe that trading Bernadetta will earn her favors from elsewhere, be that the Empire or the western lords. In any case, she currently has no footing to stand upon.”

“Are you sure? She was raving about annulment.”

“The marriage was consummated, was it not?”

Felix plasters a smooth expression onto his face. “Yeah. Of course.”

“She would have to prove fraud in that case. She would have to prove that Bernadetta was taken as a hostage and forced into the marriage, and while she may be adept at turning the rumor mill, Cornelia might find it more difficult to prove in a court of law.”

“Got it.” Felix is confident of one thing: Bernadetta will testify to the truth. So will Ingrid and Sylvain and all the others. Why then does the anxiety work at his gut? He begins to muse aloud: "Half the court thinks she's a spy, and the other half thinks she's a war hostage. I didn't expect this much interest in my marriage." 

“I would not concern yourself; however, I do believe that it would be prudent for you both to remove for your honeymoon as soon as possible.”

“Wait? No. I’m staying here. I don’t need a fucking honeymoon. There’s a war going on.”

Rodrigue shakes his head. “Sooner or later, Rufus will disband the court. When that happens, I suspect that lines will be drawn into the sand about everyone’s respective loyalties.”

“All the more reason I need to be here!”

“I worry that when that happens, Rufus— or Cornelia— will try to sequester the Prince, putting him deeper into their control. If we work quickly, we can suggest that he takes some time in Dunmar for his health. You and your bride can join him there.”

Dunmar is one of the royal estates, clinging to the northern coast of Blaiddyd. It is notable for its proximity to the border of Fraldarius province. _The old man is already three steps ahead_ , Felix thinks.

“Are you sure I’m the best person to be babysitting Dimitri?”

Rodrigue shrugs. “I would hope you could put aside your animosity for a few weeks while we settle matters.”

“And the war?” Felix asks.

“Does not require your assistance quite yet.” Rodrigue leans back in his chair. “I would enjoy your honeymoon while you can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some gratuitous fluff before _stuff_ happens.
> 
> Speaking of _stuff_ , next chapter, Felix does a dumb.


	4. To Have and to Hold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forced to "honeymoon" with Dimitri at the Blaiddyd summer estate, Felix and Bernadetta quickly find that danger follows them from Fhirdiad. Felix struggles with his desire to protect Bernadetta at any cost, even if that means he's the one who ends up hurting her.

Felix does not care for horseback riding the same way that Sylvain and Ingrid do—with their races and daily rides— but anything was infinitely preferable to sitting in this dark, rattling box for hours. Dimitri occupies half the carriage, a knot of bent limbs and yellow hair assembled on the narrow seat opposite Felix and Bernadetta. He has not spoken a word since they left Fhirdiad. 

Bernadetta, meanwhile, seems to enjoy herself. Before leaving Fhirdiad, she had managed to get her hands on a tambour hoop and some brightly colored floss. Using the light from the window, she stiches a vine of flowers through loose-woven linen. But as the daylight begins to wane, her eyes squint, and finally, she abandons the task.

“How far away is Dunmar?” Bernadetta asks in a whisper. Felix strains to hear it. He realizes that she does not want to disturb Dimitri, but he doesn’t know to explain to her that the boar does not slumber.

“We should be there soon,” Felix says.

Bernadetta shivers. Her hands race up and down her arms. “It gets so cold here at night! I can’t believe this is summer!”

“It’s not that cold. Not as warm as Garreg Mach—”

”Not as warm as Garreg Mach!” Bernadetta exclaims. “It was so chilly there! I thought I was going to freeze to death every night! My poor room was so drafty…”

“I guess the Empire is fairly warm compared to the Kingdom,” Felix says absently, without even realizing what he has just muttered.

Dimitri begins to laugh. “Oh, it’ll be a warm day indeed when I sweep through Enbarr.”

Bernadetta whimpers. She slings herself against Felix’s body.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Felix snaps.

“What is wrong with me? I should be fighting! Not summering in Dunmar!”

Felix hates to sound like his father, but someone needs to rein in the boar before he goes wild again. Bad enough that he scares Bernadetta; she has never recovered from the incident after the battle.

“You are no use to anyone in this state. A good fighter has to maintain a clear perspective,” Felix says. “If you want to fight, you have to prove that you’re not going to turn into an animal out there.”

Dusk turns the carriage into a casket of drawn shadows. Dimitri expels a sputtering exhalation. Felix thinks his eyes have closed or perhaps it is just the darkness shading his brow.

“You’re right.”

Felix relaxes somewhat. Bernadetta tenses against his side. It is only now that Felix realizes that he has thrown his arm around her. Stupid. What would that do to help if Dimitri lost his mind? He should have a hand on his sword—that would be wiser.

“You’re right,” Dimitri says again, his head nodding. “Glenn…yes…”

“What the fuck did you just say?”

He feels himself rise on his haunches, shoulders rolling against the roof carriage as he rises. Suddenly, it is not him holding Bernie but Bernadetta tugging him back towards the seat. The carriage hits a rut, and Felix slams back down. It is for the best: Dimitri stares at him as though startled awake from a dream.

“Excuse me,” he murmurs. “Where is Dedue?”

Rufus had prevented Dedue from entering the carriage, and Dedue—never wishing to cause a scene—acquiesced. Felix wishes that Dedue had fought for his place by Dimitri’s side and given Felix the damn horse.

It gives him an idea. He extricates himself from Bernie’s iron grip and leans his hand outside of the carriage to tap on the roof. The carriage slows, and one of the footmen opens the door. Felix grabs Bernadetta and drags her out of the carriage.

Dedue has already dismounted. He races towards them, stony face carved in worry.

“The boar needs you,” Felix says to Dedue. He marches past him to the abandoned horses. He releases Bernadetta so that he can adjust the stirrups; the horse has a build not unlike Dedue—tall and thundering.

“Um, Felix?” Bernadetta asks.

“Look, I know you’re cold, but this is better—”

“Oh! I’m fine with this,” she twittered. “He’s kinda scary.”

Felix glances towards the knights accompanying the party. Different faces from the ones he knew back in Garreg Mach. It’s impossible to tell their loyalty.

“He’s not well,” he whispers to Bernadetta. “Now come on. We can talk when we get to Dunmar.” He hoists himself up on the saddle first, holding a hand down to help pull Bernadetta up. She feels light as a bird, flying up to slip into the saddle behind him. Her arms wrap around his torso, and her cheek presses to his back.

“You’re warm at least,” she says. “You’re always warm.”

Her body sinks against his. Well, he certainly feels warm now.

* * *

Bernadetta doesn’t know what she expected out of Dunmar. Perhaps the stucco-walled domes of the seaside retreats in the Empire. Perhaps a complex sprawl of towers and battlements like Fhirdiad. Certainly not a sharp-faceted cube of cut stone, another grey jewel in the colorless northern country.

Then again, night obscures most of the building. Light illumines the front windows, but the rest of the edifice sinks under the inky night. Felix dismounts before Bernadetta. Cold air fills the vacuum left by his body, sending chills spasming down her spine. All she wants now is to go to bed. Oh, what a sweet idea that is. Soft sheets and fluffy pillows and a warm husband—

Bernadetta shivers. This time, it is not from the cold.

“Come on.” Felix gestures to her. She slides off the saddle as a servant takes the reins. Eagerly, she follows Felix over the threshold. “Go with the maids,” he directs her. “I need to keep an eye on Dimitri.”

Bernadetta nods. Perhaps she can dress for bed and slip in before Felix comes. That would be less awkward, she thinks. She’s still not used to sharing a bed. How much longer will they have to go on like this before she can get her own room again?

The bedroom she will share with Felix seems cozier than the one in Fhirdiad. Which of course means smaller. The bed will fit two full-sized adults but only just. No boudoir or closet—no sofa or settee. A nervous feeling flutters in her belly. It will be much harder to avoid him here.

There is a screen for dressing, at least. Quickly, she changes into her nightgown before escaping to the safety of bed. Her eyes squeeze shut. If she falls asleep now, perhaps she can skip the awkwardness of Felix entering the room and seeing how small the bed is.

The bed hugs her in its warmth. Goodness, what a delight to be out of the cold summer night. Winter will be worse! She’s heard stories of snowdrifts that swallow up houses and lakes coated so thickly with ice that a carriage can run over them.

For some reason, thinking of winter flurries while buried in blankets soothes Bernadetta to sleep. She succumbs to dreams of horses and black countryside.

A loud _crack_ jerks Bernadetta awake. She flies up from the pillows, head swiveling towards the corners to find the intruder.

There is no one.

Her brain races with every malicious possibility. Clinging to the blanket, she tries to catch her breath and steady her galloping heart. It was nothing. Just normal noise from the manor. Except Bernadetta has lived in a manor before, and she has never heard a sound like this.

Just as she is about to settle back into bed, more noises grind and scrape outside the window— like something heavy breaking and crumbling away. A heavy thud strikes the earth, and now Bernadetta is positive that something is outside her window. 

Bernadetta grabs her dagger from the pile of clothes she left on the floor and scuttles to the window. The brightness of the room only makes night that much darker. She struggles to see anything through the window.

Bernadetta strains her ears. She thinks she hears voices.

At this moment, the door behind her opens.

“Yeaghh!” She screams, waving her dagger in the air.

Felix raises a bemused eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”

“I heard something outside. I’m not sure what. But it was just outside the window and really loud.”

Felix moves to the window and peers out. She wonders if he can make out any more than she can. “Could be the guards. They’re setting up around the manor.”

Only now does Bernadetta remember that she is her nightgown. Oof, he keeps seeing her like this. The shift is so thin, so flimsy. As he peers outside the window, she backs away and dives into the bed. Only when she sufficiently wraps herself in blankets does she poke her head out again.

Bad time to look. Felix is currently peeling off his shirt.

Bernadetta turns her face away. “How’s Dimitri?” Felix grunts in response. He settles on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots. Bernadetta stares at him curiously. She cannot see his face from here, but intuition tells her something different. “You’re worried, aren’t you?”

“I’m not,” he says sharply. Bernadetta almost recoils. When he sighs, she reminds herself that this is just his typical avoidance. 

Part of her remembers a time when she had been able to maneuver around that, with jokes and smiles and cute little quips. Why does it seem so much harder now that they are married?

“I’m worried about him,” she says.

“Doesn’t he scare you?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s why I’m worried! The way he changed…something must be terribly wrong.”

“He didn’t change, Bernadetta.” Felix chokes on the words. “He was just hiding it before. The things I’ve seen him do…” Felix wavers, and Bernadetta wonders if he’s going to continue. Instead, he flips his legs over the side of the bed. “Let’s just go to sleep.”

He flops back on the pillows, eyes already closed, although his face twitches with unvoiced emotion. Bernadetta should just blow out the candle, but her heart tugs for Felix. Something is very wrong.

Bernadetta pares away a few layers of blanket and tucks them around Felix’s body.

“I don’t need blankets,” he murmurs.

“You can talk to me, you know, if you want.” Bernadetta hovers slightly above him. “I am your wife technically.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to let him hurt you.”

“I’m not worried about that! I’m worried about you.”

His eyes open now, the dimming candlelight exaggerating the amber glow behind his brown eyes. “You don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you need to.”

Felix’s hand reaches for her. She freezes— _what in the world is he going to do?_ His finger curls in the shaggy hair at the nape of her neck. Suddenly, the hand moves to her shoulder and he tugs her down to the bed. She lands against him, snapping into place at his side like a puzzle piece.

Bernadetta’s breath catches. Small as the bed is, she did not expect to sleep so close to him. Her brain tears in two directions at once: desiring both to flee and to leave his arm snaked around her.

Does he hear the way her heartbeat thuds? This is so awkward. What is she supposed to do with her hands? Where should she rest her head?

He says nothing about their position or how rigid Bernadetta’s muscles have gone. She wonders if she should roll away. Part of her doesn’t want to. Felix is so, so warm. She could sleep so easily here, lulled to sleep by his heartbeat.

Summoning all the courage she has left, Bernadetta closes her eye, inhales deeply, and wills her muscles to relax.

Hopefully, they won’t have to talk about this in the morning.

* * *

Felix is not quite certain what had happened last night. He just wanted Bernadetta to go to bed. He had intended to give an affectionate tug, but instead, he ended up cuddling with her. And part of him knows it wasn’t entirely accidental.

There are benefits to this situation. The move had proved an effective means of silencing her; Felix really did not want to spare another thought about Dimitri right before sleep. And sure, her touch calms him in unexpected ways; he has never enjoyed hugging or touching his friends but this is different. It comforts him, settles him, makes him forget partially everything wrong.

Somewhere in the night, he has rolled over on his side, and she in turn latched herself around his back. Felix understands that it is usually considered the masculine thing to spoon the lady, but he cannot deny that he enjoys being held like this.

 _(Enjoys being held_. Goddess, how he has fallen.)

Still, there are complications.

His heart beats erratically, and cold perspiration blankets his body, and his gut churns with emotion. These alien sensations grate at him. He wonders how to make them stop. 

Another—more immediate— problem is that he is a man, and his body reacts in certain ways in the morning, something harder to conceal when her body swaddles his. 

When Felix realizes what is happening, his face flushes with embarrassment. Bernadetta’s arm clings around his upper chest, but his breath catches as he fears what might happens if it slips lower. His situation worsens as his groggy mind processes the shape of her body molded against his.

Felix feels hot. Hotter than he usually does when he sleeps.

Grasping her hands with the delicacy he usually foreswears, he pries her from his chest and shifts out of the bed. Bernadetta rolls over and rubs her eyes. Felix twists himself away, so to conceal his problem.

“Felix?” she murmurs, still half asleep.

“Go to sleep. I’m going to train,” he whispers. She nods her head and disappears under the blankets. He’s not sure how she can sleep like that, so bundled up and insulated in her own heat. Her body has left an imprint of sweat on his back.

He dresses quickly behind the screen, giving himself a few minutes for his body to calm down. He reminds himself not to get into this situation again; tonight, he and Bernadetta must revert to opposite sides of the bed. 

A few drills out on the green will help clear his mind before breakfast, he decides. Morning sun just barely cracks into the windows of the estate, yet except for the rustle of servants, all is still and quiet.

The gardens are empty and untended. The rose bushes have disintegrated into scraggly brambles, only a few browning blooms falling to pieces from the vines. The rose garden had been Patricia’s design, Felix remembers. He recalls visiting Dunmar in the summer with his mother and brother, playing with Dimitri while Elmira Fraldarius helped Patrica cut blooms.

To this day, he does not know if his mother was friends with Patricia. One of the few people permitted to socialize with Lambert’s secret second wife, she certainly spent enough time with her, and Elmira had so few friends that Felix just assumed that they were companions. But he also recalls his mother’s biting criticism of her.

“Those women from the Empire,” Elmira had scoffed once, “will never truly consider Faerghus their home. They think they’re better than us, yet here they crawl when the Empire has cast them out.”

Felix does not think that is true of Bernadetta. He hopes, at least, that she will find some solace here.

He draws the sword from its sheath and begins his drills, but not a moment passes before he notices something odd. Near a window on the second floor, a stone gutter, which runs below the roof, dangles, huge chunks of it having fallen away. Felix squints. Is that the window to the bedroom he shared with Bernadetta?

Instantly, he thinks of odd noises that Bernadetta heard the night before. Sure enough, chunks of stone flatten the bushes under the window. Felix crouches and parts the bushes to find a footprint in the dirt. 

Was someone up on the roof last night? Perhaps they had fallen and grabbed the moldering gutter, not realizing that it was unstable? Or were they using the gutter to hide without being seen by the guards sweeping the house for assassins? If it was a guard, he would have heard about it.

“Blast!” Felix swears. As if things couldn’t get worse.

Well, so much for training. Now, he must talk to Dedue to figure out if anyone had been up on the roof last night.

Dedue does not occupy the quarters assigned to him, but Felix honestly did not expect to find him there anyways. He knocks on Dimitri’s door, and sure enough, Dedue answers, wearing his exhaustion as prominently as he wears his crumpled shirt.

“Felix,” he says, “Is there something wrong?”

Felix nods, but before he gets a chance to explain, Dimitri enters the frame of the door. He still wears his clothes from last night, despite what must have been a fervent effort by Dedue to get him to change.

“Felix,” he says, “ah, good, you are here. I just wanted to say...” He takes in an unsteady breath, “I apologize for scaring Bernadetta last night. I realize now that…I…I am not well.” As he says it, his head drops into his hand, and he scrunches up his hair.

“Look, don’t apologize to me,” Felix says. “Bernadetta is content in her room. But last night she heard noises outside our window, and sure enough, it looks as though someone might have been on the roof last night.”

Dedue hums. “The guards perhaps?"

Felix shakes. “It is easier for me to show you.”

“Please, rest, your Highness,” Dedue says. “I will handle everything.” Dimitri opens his mouth as if to fight, but instead, glumly nods and slinks back into the bedroom.

“How do you do it?” Felix asks Dedue as they walk down the halls together.

“I am afraid I do not understand.”

“How you calm him down?”

Dedue shrugs. “His highness requires patience. The situation with the Empire deeply concerns him. He does not mean ill.”

Felix almost feels like he is being scolded. What does it matter what the boar prince means when he cannot control his temper?

Felix leads Dedue out to the garden. He explains the noises that Bernadetta heard, and Dedue agrees that it is all very suspicious indeed. Unfortunately, a search of the manor reveals nothing. Dimitri’s battalion admits they might have heard something last night, but with all the movement in the house, it was difficult to perceive what.

A dead end.

“This concerns me greatly.” Dedue folds his hands behind his back as they stand on the roof. Here, the wind whips from the sea with such ferocity that Felix can barely hear Dedue over it. “We must double the guard on patrol at night. If this is happening our first night…” He sighs, a rare interruption in his usual serenity. “His highness needs time to rest if he is going to recover. Please, do not worry him more than he already is.”

“You want me to hide this from him?”

“You do not need to hide anything,” Dedue says. “But there are matters we can handle by ourselves to spare him the stress.”

The idea initially peeves Felix, but perhaps Dedue has a point. Keeping Dimitri out of the loop will keep him out of the way as well.

“Fine,” Felix says. “Do me a favor and don’t mention this to Bernadetta either. I don’t want her freaking out.” Managing Dimitri is hard enough; Felix just needs to keep Bernadetta calm long enough to get through this nightmare of a honeymoon.

“Very well,” Dedue says. “But I would keep a close eye on her. Trust me, Felix, there are people who would think ill of her just because she’s from the Empire.”

As if Felix hasn’t already gotten that message.

* * *

Bernadetta quickly realizes that she prefers Dunmar to Fhirdiad. Other than the servants, she knows everyone on the premises, and on the rare occasions that she needs to duck from her room, she finds herself mostly alone. There are no scary lords to encounter; no secret conversations to hear behind locked doors.

Felix usually disappears early in the morning, before Bernadetta has even risen, and she will not see him for the whole of the day. That suits her fine. Plenty of time to finish her cross stitch or to sketch the gardens from her window. 

But one morning, Felix does not disappear. Instead, Bernadetta wakes to him shaking her arm.

“Hey,” he says, “I want you to come train with me.”

“Mmmm, what?”

Bernadetta sinks deeper into her covers. The benefits of having a husband who sleeps hot is that all the blankets are hers, and that gives her plenty of yardage to disappear into the linens.

“Come on, Bernadetta.” He sounds impatient already. Bernadetta cracks an eye open. Light only half-fills the room. It is too early to wake. “If you don’t keep up your training, you’ll lose what you’ve got.”

Bernadetta groans. “I thought the purpose of this marriage was so that I didn’t have to fight!”

“Not in the war, but you still have to protect yourself,” Felix says.

Bernadetta’s eyes peek from the bedsheets. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Something’s wrong. I can feel it!”

Felix groans. “Just come on already.”

He grabs the blankets and tugs, unraveling Bernadetta from her cocoon. She shrieks and tries to wriggle back into her nest, but Felix has successfully drawn the pile up into his arm, leaving Bernadetta exposed on the bed. When she realizes how high her hem has rucked up her legs, she shrieks again and hugs a pillow to her chest. 

“If you don’t exercise, how will you run away from my mother at Aversea?”

Bernadetta gasps. “Why would I want to run away? I knew it! There is something wrong with her!”

“That was a joke.”

Bernadetta screws her face. “You don’t make jokes.”

Felix scoffs. “Yes, I do.” Almost petulantly, he drops the bundle of blankets. Bernadetta thinks he has given up until he rounds the bed and scoops his arms underneath her.

“Let go of me!” She shrieks as he pulls her up into his arms. It’s almost scary how strong he is; he picked her up as though she were as light as the bedsheets. And struggling does little to loosen his grasp.

“If you were training, you would know how to escape.”

“Hey, wait a second, you’re not going to carry me out of here in my nightgown, are you?” The whole household will see her in her bedclothes! How does Bernie keep getting into this situation! 

“If I leave this room to let you change, you’re just going to lock the door on me.”

“N-no! Well, fine, I promise I won’t. I’ll go behind the screen to change.”

Begrudgingly, Felix releases Bernadetta. Like a bird freed from a trap, she scuttles towards the screen, ever aware that Felix stands on the other side.

Felix stares at her when she reemerges. She thought he might be lost in thought, but his gaze flicks up to meet hers. Nutbrown eyes, carrying all the intensity of thunder, burrow beneath her skin.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

He blinks, broken from his trance, and shakes his head. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

She follows him down the corridor. The servants pause their tasks to bow or curtsy to their lieges. Their eyes widen when they see Bernadetta emerge at her husband’s side, and they track her down the hall. The guards too seem to gawk at her.

 _You’re imagining things again, Bernie,_ she thinks to herself.

Coming out into the garden, Bernadetta realizes this is the first time she has left the manor since arriving. The grass drips with dew. The sun has not risen high enough to burn off the mist, and she shivers, cold and wet, in the morning gloom.

Felix has set up some training dummies on the green. Their presence jars Bernadetta—a stark reminder of war just a hair away from the bramble of the rose garden.

Felix hands her a wooden prop. “You remember what we were doing back at Garreg Mach with daggers?”

Bernadetta nods fervently. Her dagger stays so close to her side these days; she has threatened every grumble in the manor and stabbed at the shadows in her room.

“Come at me.”

“What?”

“Just do it.” Bernadetta looks at him askew. “Attack me like you were going to at Garreg Mach. Downward strike first. Like I taught you.”

Bernadetta nods. Fighting baffles her. It really is like dancing: it appears graceful and effortless. In reality, it requires a combination of complex steps. Hands, feet, hips, elbows: all have to lock in the correct position to strike with the greatest efficiency. 

Bernadetta lunges forward and swipes the dagger downwards through the air. Felix blocks with his arm. In a deft movement, he hooks his own dagger around her wrist and pulls her forward.

“That was clumsy.” He releases her, and she rubs her wrist. “Again. This time, block me first with your free arm and then use the dagger to make your move.”

She fumbles the second attempt. With a sigh, Felix tosses his dagger into the grass. He moves behind her and grabs each of her arms.

“Block.” He raises one of her arms. “Stab.” He guides the other, his fingers smoothing over her grasp to gently correct it. “Block. Stab.”

 _He’s a good teacher_ , Bernadetta thinks. Better than the ones she had at Garreg Mach even.

When he steps away, she almost regrets it. “Now’s let do this step by step. Lunge. Block. Stab.” Bernadetta mimes the actions a few times, before he quickens the pace.

“This is why I prefer bows,” she says. “No need to get all up close and personal.”

“Yeah, but you’re at a disadvantage if the enemy gets the drop on you.”

“Well, I’ve got my own techniques for that, and they seem to work very well, thank you very much.”

“You can’t always rely on the same techniques.”

“Why not? They worked pretty well against you.”

“Yeah, but now I know all your tricks. And there are some fundamental flaws to them.”

Bernadetta frowns. “Oh yeah?”

Is that a smile she sees twitching at his lips? Mischief perhaps? She almost cannot believe it.

“Yeah,” he says. “Here. I’ll try attacking again, and you see how well your disarming works.”

Bernadetta nods, ready to prove him wrong. When Felix charges, Bernadetta flails her arms just as she always did, only to find him hooking the dagger around her wrist. It allows him to slide around her body, and somehow in a split second, Bernadetta finds her back pressed against his torso. His dagger sits at her collarbone, the arm pinning her spare elbow against her hip. Her other arm twists behind her back.

“You see,” his breath tickles her ear, “if I incapacitate your arms, you can’t use your traditional disarming move. So what are you going to do?”

Bernadetta tests the strength of his grasp. She can barely wiggle, he holds her so snug. When she tries to slide down, his grip tightens, and she hears a soft chuckle.

“You’re enjoying this! How did it take you to think this up anyways?”

“It’s like a puzzle,” Felix says. “You have to anticipate different solutions to the same problem.”

“Does it matter? I doubt anyone but you will even make that move! No one else has been studying me like that!”

Felix releases Bernadetta quickly. “I haven’t been studying you! I’ve been…thinking through a problem. Anyways,” he quickly shifts, “you should be prepared for anything.”

“Anything, huh?” Bernadetta says. She fidgets with the dagger in her hand, watching as he turns away. He casts his dagger to the side and takes up a wooden sparring sword instead. Giving the air a few slashes, he says,

“I’ve set up some archery targets for you,” Felix says. “I managed to get a bow from the fletcher in Fhirdiad. I think you should—”

Bernadetta takes her opening. She flings herself towards Felix, jumping on his back and pressing the blunt point of her practice dagger towards his throat. Startled, Felix slides in the dew, and suddenly, they both tumble to the ground. Recovering quickly, Bernadetta throws herself on top of him and sticks her dagger triumphantly to his neck.

“What was that about?”

“You said you had to be prepared for anything! Looks like somebody should take their own advice.”

Without warning, Felix’s face splits into a grin, and he laughs. He actually laughs!

“Aha!” Bernadetta says with triumph. “There it is.”

“There what is?”

“You’re smiling. That’s the first real smile I’ve seen since we got here.”

Felix straightens his face out as if to make a point. “So what?”

“So you’ve been really stressed, and there’s always something bad happening,” Bernadetta says. It becomes very difficult to look at Felix. Her hands skim over the grass. Softly, she adds, “I like it when you smile is all.”

He says nothing at first. Bernadetta peaks a glance back at him. He’s staring at her again—the same way he stared at her this morning. Before, Bernadetta thought that something might be wrong, but now she wonders if it means something else.

Now she _hopes_ it means something else.

Without warning, Felix reels upwards. Bernadetta clambers off of him as he stands, brushing grass from his trousers and shaking his head.

“We don’t have time for this,” he says abruptly. “I have to go. The boar needs me.”

Perhaps she had done something wrong after all.

* * *

Felix feels weak.

Not the sort of weakness that he encounters on the battlefield. Weakness there is just an absence of strength. No, he feels physically weak. Spiritually weak. He cannot tell if the tremble affect his limbs or his soul. It bubbles and boils almost as much as it thrills and excites.

Bernadetta has not left his mind all day. What a fool he was bringing her to train like that. Just encouraging her proximity to him, as if it wasn’t bad enough that they had to share that tiny bed. He can barely sleep at night, the way that she clings to him. And it would annoy him except that his thoughts always carry elsewhere.

Goddess, it is tempting. Is this how Sylvain feels with all of his infatuations? Propelled by a primal impulse to make poor decisions just so he can feel the touch of her hands or hear that soft giggle.

How easy would it be just to give in. To just allow himself an indulgence. To kiss his wife and hold her at night. To let her drink in his warmth. To _consummate_ his marriage—a thought that spills through his body with such enthusiasm that he audibly groans each time it happens. 

It is no longer so easy to minimize the feelings he’s been harboring ever since he chickened out on that date. This is not Garreg Mach, though. Here it is not so easy to dream of running away. In fact, leaving is the very problem that Felix must confront. 

Felix will deploy for war. Cautious as he is, he could die.

Nothing can hold him back. He cannot afford attachments or distractions. Were he to allow himself to explore these feelings, how much worse would they become? If he is constantly looking back towards Aversea, how could he ever charge forward in war?

He would have to resist. Just a little while longer.

Surely, once he goes off to fight, he will have ample distraction and these feeble emotions will dissipate. They are merely a temporary affliction, encouraged by their proximity and that damn small bed.

Unfortunately, he has no place to go at night except their bedroom. Felix would try to sleep in the study, but there always seems to be a servant there with a smug “is everything well, my lord” or a “problems with the bed chambers, my lord?” Outside, guards trample the gardens, so camping outdoors will not work. 

The best he can hope for is that Bernadetta is asleep when he arrives. Perhaps he ought to make a habit of sleeping on the floor. The servants might gossip, but what of it?

Felix waits as long as he can before slipping quietly back into their bedroom. One lone candle burns into a puddle on the bedside table. He closes the door with barely a click, yet at the sound, Bernadetta launches upright in bed.

“Oh, Felix, it’s you,” she says with a yawn.

“Go back to sleep.”

She nods. “Sorry. I just hear so many strange noises in this place.”

 _Well, that’s alarming_.

“Anything like the first night?”

Bernadetta shakes her head. “Did you ever figure out what that was?”

“No.” It’s not a lie. Technically, they never did discover what made the gutter collapse.

Bernadetta scoots aside to make room for him on the bed. Felix tries to take as long as possible to get ready for bed, but he cannot delay long. As he sits on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes, she offers him a blanket, and he shakes his head.

“Just go to bed.”

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Nothing.” He swings his legs up into the bed. “Good night.” He tries to at least feign sleep.

He hears the sheets rustle, and suddenly, Bernadetta rolls against his side. When he opens his eyes, he finds her staring at him.

“Something’s wrong! I can tell! You’ve been so distant.”

“Everything is wrong,” Felix says. “We’re in middle of a war. There are agents in court working against us. Dimitri is barely hanging on. It can’t be smiles all the time.”

He feels her flinch under the blankets.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did wrong, but I’m really sorry.” Her voice crackles. Goddess, she’s on the edge of tears, and Felix doesn’t know how long he can stand it.

“You did nothing wrong. Just don’t worry about it.”

He just wants Bernadetta to turn back into bed, because the longer she stares at him, the deeper it strikes into his core.

A quaking hand reaches out for him. She brushes loose hair from his forehead. “I want you to know,” she says, a quaver running beneath her words, “that I’ve decided to become strong for you. And I’ll practice my bow everyday and leave the room for meals. Because I want to take care of you as well as you take care of me.”

His throats seizes up, and he's lost all ability to speak. 

Bernadetta waits for him to say something. When he doesn't, she darts forward to land a quick peck on his cheek. Quickly, she draws away, already casting her eyes elsewhere. The temptation to return the gesture riles Felix. His body pulls him in one direction, with his heart keen to follow.

But the war.

“Bernadetta, you know I’m going to have to leave you soon, right?”

She frowns in confusion. “I know.”

Felix gathers his courage. Why is he turning into a coward now of all times? _Just speak. Just say the words, you damn fool_. “I think we’ve gotten a little too close for this arrangement to work.” He lets his hand drop from her hand. “Do not become attached to me, Bernadetta.”

"What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I cannot fight and protect everyone I care about and stop the Empire while giving you what you would want out of a romantic partner.”

“Oh.”

For some reason, that single, soft rasped syllable kills Felix. He shores up his strength.

“I’ve lost people before,” Felix says. “I know what kind of pain that causes. I don’t want you to go through that if something happens to me.”

“But you’re the only person I have here.” Bernadetta’s voice cracks. “Everyone hates me or suspects me.”

“You’ve always done well on your own.”

“Oh.”

There it is again.

But what follows is worse.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, “I thought you liked me…I made a mistake.”

Felix grits his teeth. “I have no time for romance right now, Bernadetta. Maybe, yeah, if we survive this ordeal, it’ll be another matter, but right now, I have to focus, and I can’t seem to do that with you around!”

For a painfully long second, Bernadetta says nothing. There’s not a tremor from the blankets or even a sob.

Suddenly, she throws off the blankets and scampers out of bed. She grabs a robe and as she flings it onto her body, she turns on him.

“Felix Hugo Fraldarius, you are _SO MEAN_!” Bernadetta hollers. “You ask me to run away with you! You ask me to marry you! You tell me that you want to protect me. You hold me at night, and now you’re telling me that I'm a distraction and that I shouldn't get attached to you!”

Swarmed by guilt, Felix looks away. He has never seen her angry before, but he thinks this might be it. Her fists curl, and her whole body shakes.

“Why did you ask me to come here? Was it really just to get out of another marriage?”

“I wanted to protect you.”

“But _why_?” 

There’s a volcano inside of him that wants to burst. Felix burns as he fights to keep it all down. _This is for her own good_ , he repeats to himself. _This will save her the pain in the long run._

“I was upfront about it, all right?” Felix says. “I told you I didn’t want a wife. I told you that I wanted this to be a transaction. I can’t afford to be distracted like this. Distraction means death in war.”

The tears come so fast, Bernadetta can barely keep up. It is an ugly sight, her wiping away sobs and snot with the palm of her sleeve.

“You are just like your father,” she says. “You say you want to protect me, but you have no consideration for my feelings!”

Something snaps inside of him. “How _dare_ you. I will not take this from someone who has run away her whole life.”

Bernadetta flinches. There is a brief break in the paroxysms, but then suddenly, her mouths screws into a dreadful wail. Felix sees her go towards the door, so he quickly stands and beats her to the punch.

“Whatever. Stay here. I’ll go.”

He slams the door behind him. Immediately, he hears her turn the lock. The sounds of her sobs breach the door. 

Guess he’ll be sleeping outside after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean to write so much for this chapter, but there was a lot to explore before Felix's bad decisions. So, um, Happy Valentine's day?
> 
> Thank you everyone so far your comments and kudos! They really make my day! 
> 
> Next chapter: Felix has to confront the consequences of his own actions.


	5. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernadetta is avoiding Felix. Felix is avoiding his feelings. But when danger comes knocking, they may need to confront their broken relationship before it is too late.

Felix wakes on hard wet ground with a sour feeling in his belly. Regrets churns in his belly, almost nauseous in its effect. Sleep had not come easily either; he passed the night fitfully, the scene of Bernadetta crying infinitely rewinding in his dreams.

When the first light breaks over the horizon, he decides to give up on the whole idea of sleep. He attempts his morning exercises, but his mind keeps diverting to their argument the previous night. Bernadetta crying. Bernadetta calling him mean. Bernadetta accusing him of being like his father. 

His feet slip on the dew, and it reminds him of tumbling in the grass with her just a day before.

Goddess, why is he like this? These are the feelings he had hoped to banish! Last night was supposed to put an end to his distractions. Now they’re worse.

“My lord.”

Felix spins around with such abruptness that if he were carrying a real blade, he might have lobbed off the head of the poor servant who interrupted him.

“My apologies, my lord. I came to inquire about your wife.”

“What about her?”

“She has not taken her breakfast,” the young valet says. “And she will not open her door. Is all well?”

All is not well. Bernadetta will not open her door for anyone. Felix knows that all too well.

“Just let her be,” Felix says. “She’ll get hungry eventually.” This is not Felix’s problem. If Bernadetta wants to hide away again, then he’s not going to put in the effort to stop her.

“So you would prefer us to leave her alone, sir?”

“Yes,” he says curtly.

“Perhaps if we—”

“I said leave her alone!”

The valet's expression widens in shock. He bows and scurries backwards into the manor.

Felix resumes his training. He practices his uppercuts with a blunt wooden sword that thwacks against the dummy in a steady rhythm. His strikes begin with precision but grow increasingly wild.

Just a few more days, and this hellish honeymoon will be over. What then, he wonders? His father probably already has a plan. He wonders if that plan includes Bernadetta.

_Thwack. Thwack._

Any plan, of course, would require Bernadetta to leave her room. She’ll have to go eventually. If he waits long enough, she’ll crack on her own. But he also knows how stubborn she is. How long did it take Byleth to coax her out of her room at Garreg Mach? 

Of course, she was never this angry at anyone before. Felix does not know how to deal with her rage. 

_Thwack. Thwack._

He can’t help it. It’s not his fault. Life is cruel, and war is crueler. Can’t she see that this is for her own benefit as well? Distance will make them both stronger. If they survive, then they can be as married and as happy as she wants. But he could never put her through the grief that could result if he dies.

It is foolish to feel such things knowing what pain awaits.

And yet for all that tries to elude pain, the consequences of his actions still stab him, like a sharp knife that keeps twisting.

 _Crack_! It takes him another two swings to realize that the wood of his practice blade has splintered.

Shit. Why won’t this feeling just go away?

Perhaps a run might help. He does two laps around the manor, but his thoughts run away with him until he is uncharacteristically breathless. As he slows his pace around the gardens, he glances up at Bernadetta’s window. For a second he thinks he sees her staring at him, but the figure darts away.

This is not helping. None of this is helping. He has to confront her. Perhaps the problem was that they were both so heated last night, they didn’t have a chance to talk things through properly. Surely, once Felix could really explain himself, she might understand.

So Felix wipes the sweat off his brow before ascending the stairs towards his marital chambers. Every step makes his stomach clench, and the perspiration from his exercise turns cold.

When he reaches the door, he stares at it, straining his ears for any movement on the other side. She has probably heard him approach; she probably sees his feet under the door.

 _This is dumb. Just go in._ He grabs the knob, but of course, it is locked. Finally, he raises his fist and knocks.

There is no answer.

“Bernadetta,” he says, “Bernadetta, open up.”

Nothing. Felix scratches the back of his head. This will be as bad as dragging her out of her bedroom during the early days at Garreg Mach.

“Come on and eat something. Don’t starve because you’re upset with me.”

Not even a rustle or a creak from the other side.

“We can’t avoid each other forever. We might as well get this over with.”

Silence. _Great_.

“I’m sorry.” He trips over the words. “I am a jerk. I know that. If it’s worth anything, I feel bad about it.”

Still nothing.

“Bernadetta, please open this door,” his voice breaks. “Don’t be stubborn. You have to eat. You have to leave eventually.”

Nothing.

Felix resists the urge to kick the door in frustration.

“Whatever. This is a waste of time.”

As he leaves, he wonders why his heart feels so hollow, and the poison of his own words sting him.

* * *

Felix is right that Bernadetta must eat, but there was enough food in the room to sustain her for a day at least. She eats some old chocolates leftover from a wedding gift and an apple from the fruit basket that the servants leave on the dresser.

The night is much rougher. She even considers opening the door for the servants, but her heart pounds and her skin sweats at the idea of confronting anyone. The servants have tried to enter several times now, and she still hasn’t recovered from Felix’s visit to her door this morning. 

She’s not sure she can go longer without eating, though. Her belly winces with pain. Glancing at the clock on the dresser, she sees that it is well after midnight. Everyone is sure to be asleep by now. Even Felix.

Especially Felix, she hopes.

She throws off the covers and slips into a dressing robe. She takes the candle from the bedside, and as she leaves the room, her eyes catches on the dagger scabbard sitting on the vanity. She won’t need it, right? She glances out towards the darkness under the door frame. With everything going on, who knows what lingers in this dank estate? Can't hurt to take it. 

She shoves it under her dressing gown and tightens the belt.

Tripping down the long corridor, Bernadetta almost regrets her decision, except for the way that her stomach tightens at the thought of food. She runs into neither servant nor mouse _nor spouse._ Good.

Unlike the castle in Fhirdiad, she does not lose herself in Dunmar. The kitchen is easy to find. A few embers still glow in the fireplace, and residual warmth suffuses the room. Bernadetta shuffles through the cabinets. She fixes herself a plate of bread, cold ham, and a cluster of grapes. She eats so quickly that the hunger pangs turn to stomachaches. Perhaps she ought to take some back with her, so that she does not need to make this journey again for several days.

As she assembles more bread and fruit onto a tray, she hears noises beyond the kitchen hall, and she freezes. It seems like footsteps and the rustle of a voice. Bernadetta freezes, her hand still outstretched for an apple. Someone is awake, moving through the castle.

Bernadetta backs up from the counter, clutching her food to her chest. When the noises settle, silence returns. Her mind switches behind hiding in the kitchen and making an escape. She could be here all night if she wasn’t careful, but who knew when it would be safe to venture out again?

When she finally she peeks her head outside of the kitchen, she neither hears nor sees a thing. Carefully, she tiptoes out into the hall.

“Who goes there!” cries a stern voice.

Bernadetta shrieks, and she fumbles to quicken her place, she falls over her own feet. The platter slips from her hands. Grapes and apples tumble onto the floor, and the plate clatters to the ground. 

“Ah, Bernadetta, it is just you.”

Only now does she realize who the voice belongs to.

“Dimitri. I-I mean, your highness!”

He hangs in the doorway of the study, steeped in shadows, only half his face limned the flicker of Bernadetta’s candle.

“I am so, so sorry for disturbing you.” Any second now, Felix will probably hear them from wherever it is he is camped in this house. Bernadetta is more afraid of him right now than Dimitri. “Um, I’ll just clean up and—”

“Actually, I am quite pleased to see you here,” Dimitri says. “I do not think I should be alone right now.”

“Huh? You’re alone? I thought I heard someone else.”

Dimitri shook his head. “My apologies. It is just me.” He bends to gather the scattered fruit. A few grapes bruise in his indelicate grasp. Bernadetta knows he means well, but after the fall of Garreg Mach, she cannot help but feel that he might crush her too between those strong hands of his.

“I understand you are quite introverted but…would you like to take a walk with me?”

“ _Now_?”

Dimitri nods. “I do not wish to wake Dedue. He has barely slept for worry over me. But the darkness is isolating, and I cannot shut out the silence.”

“Ah…and you can’t ask Felix?”

Dimitri drops the broken grapes onto her plate. “I doubt he wants anything to do with me.”

"Um, well, I just think that it is really late and I should go--"

"Please." Something hollow rasps in his voice. 

Pity stirs in Bernadetta. Looking at Dimitri, she almost recognizes something of herself in his forlorn demeanor and despair. At school, he always seemed too polished—a proper prince copied straight from the legends. Then there was the night after Garreg Mach, when he transformed into someone unrecognizable. There’s an echo of his former self here, like a porcelain doll that has already cracked.

Perhaps he is neither saint nor sinner.

“Um, I guess, well, why not?” Bernadetta says. She prefers walking at night anyways, and Dimitri wouldn't hurt her…right? In any case, she doesn’t want to say no either and risk upsetting him either. A quick walk and that is it. Felix can't accuse her of shutting herself into her room then. She sets her platter on a stand with a vase. “I’ll come back for that later. You don’t think anyone will mind, right?”

Dimitri smiles obligingly. A sadness lingers behind his expression.

He holds the door for her as they pass outside. Bernadetta shivers and tugs her sleeves over her hands. She really did not dress for this. The chill rolls off Dimitri.

“I apologize for my absence at your wedding,” Dimitri says, his hands clutched tightly behind his back. “I hope you received my gift?”

“Uh, yes. Er, thank you?” Bernadetta’s voice rising ever shriller. _Say something nice_ , she thinks, _something a lady or a future Duchess might say._ “Are you, um, feeling better?”

Dimitri shrugs. “The respite has given me…certain clarity.”

 _What the heck does that mean?!?_ Bernadetta’s head swims. Why is everything a riddle these days?

“You know, I had always imagined giving a toast at Felix’s wedding where I would mortify him with all of our childhood adventures,” Dimitri says. “It is unfortunate that I seemed to have missed my opportunity.”

The path wends towards the green where just yesterday, Felix had taken her to train. She cringes and tries to zap the memory from her mind. Dimitri’s insistence on speaking about Felix doesn’t help.

“You know,” Dimitri says, “when we were kids, Felix had to do everything that I did. If I did not allow him to tag along, he would start blubbering.”

“Wait, what?” This legitimately surprises her, and for a second, she almost forgets her anger. “Felix would cry?” She cannot imagine Felix crying. Of course, there had been a time too when she could not imagine his smile. Thinking of his smile makes her gut twist.

“Ah, he was quite the crybaby back in the day,” Dimitri says. “He was always so small too. Sylvain used to pick him up and hurl him around. It annoyed him so much.”

It almost doesn’t seem like the same person. Who is this Felix, and why has nobody told Bernie about him before?

Of course, that’s not the Felix she knows now. That’s not the Felix that yelled at her the night before. _“I will not take this from someone who has run away her whole life!”_ She winces at the memory.

“Is something wrong?” Dimitri asks.

“Ah, nope. Nothing wrong here!”

“Forgive if this is unwelcome. I understand you were arguing.”

“Oh no! Did Felix tell you about that?”

“Well, no, I…overheard it.”

What a fool she is. Her cheeks sting with embarrassment. The walls are thin, and she has been sobbing. He probably knows everything about their farce of a marriage.

“He’s a difficult man, Bernadetta,” Dimitri says. “I am not certain of the nature of your argument, but I know that he cares about you deeply.”

“That’s not the problem.”

The problem is that Bernadetta knows he cares for her--at least to some extent. She hears it every time he swears to protect her. She heard it last night when he confessed how deeply she distracted him.

The problem is, that isn’t enough. She isn’t enough.

Bernadetta teeters on the edge of tears. How stupid she was to come here. To yoke herself to a nation where she had no friends and no allies. To let herself think that Felix might compromise his carefully guarded values for her. _Her_ , of all people.

She is nothing more than a stupid girl. All those years, her father was right. No one could love her. No one truly would want her for a wife. As much or as little as he might care, Felix wants to go throw himself into a battle more than he wants to be with her.

She turns away from Dimitri, about ready to spring back into the house. It is too cold here, and goosebumps spring up along her skin.

A glint in the moonlight catches her eye. Dark shapes move around in the night. By the time that Bernadetta realizes what is happening, it is already too late.

“Dimitri!” she cries as she hears the whizz of a projectile sing through the air. Dimitri grunts and clutches at a dart that sticks into the flesh above his collar bone.

Two figures emerge from the shadows, faces veiled with cloth masks. Bernadetta reaches under her robe for her dagger. Dimitri staggers, but while he does not fall, his face contorts with an odd expression. The hand that once stemmed the puncture on his neck falls limply to his side.

One of the figures nears Bernadetta with outstretched arms. Bernadetta’s mind races to remember the grip that Felix had taught her, but her hands stiffen and her blood freezes.

Instinct takes over. The figure grabs her arm. Bernadetta screams and flails. First, her elbow connects with his gut, followed by the sharp stick of her dagger. The blade cleaves through flesh.

She hears a shrill groan from her attacker. His grip slips just enough for Bernadetta to wrench her arm away. She searches for Dimitri. He has collapsed onto his knees, struggling to stay upright as tremors pulse through his body. The other attacker looms above him, about to sink his blade into Dimitri’s neck.

Bernadetta throws herself on the assassin's back and locks her arms around his neck. This one does not fall as easily as Felix; he is a larger man, squat and rooted to the earth. His hands tear at Bernadetta’s grip. When he cannot immediately rip her off, he takes his blade and cuts into her arm, as though he is gnawing at rope.

Bernadetta grits her teeth. If she lets him go, he’ll kill Dimitri. He’ll kill her!

“Bernadetta!”

“Your Highness!”

Felix’s and Dedue’s voices fill her with relief. In the darkness, she cannot see what unfolds, but she hears the commotion: trampling feet and deathly groans and steel biting into flesh. Bernadetta grows dizzy. Without realizing it, her grip weakens, and she slides from the attacker’s back into the grass.

With her uninjured arm, she props herself up just in time to see Dedue cut down Dimitri’s would-be assassin.

Felix drops onto the grass beside Bernadetta. Just minutes before, he was the last man in the world she wanted to see. Now, she could cry, she’s so happy to see him.

“Bernadetta. Are you all right?” His hands scout her face for any sign of injury. His gaze moves downward until he notices the blood spilling from her arm. “What happened?”

 _Don’t cry, don’t cry._ But tears come anyways. Loud sobs answer him. He does not ask again.

She is too weak to protest as he lifts her into his arms. She clutches her arm to try to curb the bleeding, but she feels blood seep between her fingers. Other voices begin to speak; she can feel the vibrations of Felix’s voice rumble through his breastbone as he speaks to Dedue. But Bernadetta is cold and tired, and her mind is too distracted by the thought of escaping to her warm bed to hear what they say.

She closes her eyes and lets the heat of his body console her. She does not need to forgive him to appreciate his warmth. If it were not for the pain of her arm, she might have fallen asleep like this.

Felix carries her inside and lays her down on a soft surface. She opens her eyes and finds that they are in the parlor. He has set her down on a chaise, too fine for all the blood that leaks from her arm. 

“Um, can we go back to our bedroom?” Bernadetta asks.

Felix shakes his head. “The healers will be here soon. We should wait here.”

He perches on the chaise next to her. A servant carries in a bowl of water and some bandages on a tray. The sight of Bernadetta in her bloodied night robe must shock and scandalize the poor girl. She tugs the folds of the gown over her chest.

Sensing her sudden awkwardness, Felix sends the servant away. One hand takes her injured hand. The other dabs a clean rag into the water and pats the blood away from the cut.

Felix’s expression carries the sort of quiet anger that simmers whenever Dimitri or Rodrigue bother him. She has disappointed him. Dimitri is poisoned, and she is injured, and they were attacked because of her midnight adventures. If she had stayed in her room, Dimitri would have never gone on that walk.

“I’m so sorry. I forgot how to do the move you taught me.” He says nothing. “I know it was foolish for us to go out like that with everything going on, but Dimitri looked like he really needed it and I couldn’t say no to the prince—"

“Don’t apologize.”

“You’re annoyed with me.”

“I’d be annoyed if you died,” Felix says. The water pinks with her blood. Felix continues to dab the rag against the gash. Bernadetta sees white jagged flesh peeling away. “I’m happy you’re alive.”

He doesn’t sound happy.

“You should go check on Dimitri,” Bernadetta says.

“Dimitri isn’t my wife.”

Bernadetta wants to be comforted by this. Bernadetta wants to be comforted by _him_. His words still linger in her mind. _Bernadetta, you should not become attached to me_. This whole incident proves why. Everyone wears a target on their back, and there is never a moment they are not in danger.

He wraps the bandage around her arm. His years on the battlefield have taught him how to expertly dress a wound.

“What were you doing out there?”

“I came down to get food, and then Dimitri found me and wanted to go on a walk,” Bernadetta says. “I know, I shouldn’t have said yes. This is all my fault.”

“You did well,” Felix says after a moment of tense silence. “If you weren’t there, he probably would have died.”

Somehow, Bernadetta does not feel better.

When he knots the bandage, his hand lingers on her arm. His fingers tiptoe up to her hands where he sets his palm for her to interlace her fingers with his.

She does not. Her hand curls into a fist instead. 

Felix shrinks backwards. He is a fickle creature, she thinks. Stubborn too. As much as she wants him to hold her and reassure her, she also fears the day that he decides once again that romance is petty and her feelings are dumb.

Better to be like him and steel herself against such things. He was once a crybaby—is that not what Dimitri had said? Yet he had become strong and numb to the world. Perhaps that is what Bernadetta needs.

“You’re cold,” he says. “Let me find you a blanket.” She is cold. Her hands and feet feel like ice, and parts of her body haven’t stopped shaking. Felix makes a pass over the room but finds nothing. He pokes his head out to ask a servant. “Sorry,” he mutters, coming back to the chaise with her. “I know how you hate being cold.”

She does hate being cold, and now she feels cold inside and out. For some reason, this makes the tears start again. They rim at the edge of her eyelids and drop silently down her cheeks in fat, wet strands.

“Bernadetta, they cannot hurt you anymore,” he says. _But you hurt me_ , she thinks, and that hurt wells up inside her, a bitterer poison than any used by her assassins tonight.

“I should have never come here!” She does not realize that she has spoken her thoughts. But now that she has said it, she cannot stop. “It would have been better for both of us.”

“Is this really worse than the Empire?”

“At least no one there would try to kill me!”

Felix does not respond.

“Anyways, don’t worry about me,” Bernadetta says. “I’ve always done well on my own after all.”

“Stop,” Felix snaps. “Can we just forget what happened last night?”

“Maybe you can,” Bernadetta says. “Forget that. Forget poor Bernie. Forget everything. But I can’t.”

Felix groans. “You were attacked. You nearly lost your life. Why are you still so focused on some stupid argument?”

“Right, because if I died, you’d be annoyed,” Bernadetta says. “There goes ol’ Bernie, annoying everyone again.”

They sit in silence for several minutes. Bernadetta wishes he would just leave again—that he would storm out. She can handle that at least. Her father always left in a rage, throwing and kicking and slamming doors. Her mother, too, would sigh and pass out of the room in icy silence. Bernadetta disappoints everyone, and then they leave.

Once they’re gone, she picks up the pieces. Alone, she can forget what it was like to think someone might love her.

Felix’s words catch in his throat. “Fine. I was wrong. I can be wrong sometimes, you know. Don’t let it bother you.”

“Stop telling me how to feel!” The anger pools inside of her again. “You’re always doing that! Telling me how to feel about the court or danger or _you_! I’m allowed to feel how I feel. Not everyone can be an emotionless plant like you.”

“I’m not emotionless,” Felix says. “I feel things. I just don’t let myself be controlled by my feelings.” She can hear the frustration grating in his voice. “Look, can you just tell me what to say to make things better?”

Bernadetta’s legs curl up towards her chin. She shivers again. Her arm needles with pain, and blood blooms against the white of her bandage.

“I just don’t want to be told that my feelings are dumb. It’s like…when I say I’m cold, you never say ‘stop being cold, Bernie’ or ‘you’re dumb for feeling cold, Bern.’ You get me a blanket. But when I’m scared or lonely or anxious, all of a sudden, it’s ‘stop doing this’ and ‘stop feeling that.’”

Felix stews in this for a minute. “Maybe I don’t understand how to help you. So just tell me.”

“No. Because you don’t want me to get attached,” Bernadetta says in a whisper. “And if I spend much more time with you, I think I will.”

“Why can’t we just move on from that?” Felix asks. The aggravation grows stronger in his voice. “I do care for you Bernadetta. The reason why I said those things—"

“I know why you said those things!” Bernadetta can’t cry anymore. The tears have all leaked out already. Instead, her feelings burst out in a flood of words. “I know a thing or about being scared, you dummy. Which is why I know that even if we move on, it’ll just happen again. You only care right now because you feel guilty, and you have no idea how to deal with any of your emotions, so you do whatever you can to run away and pretend they don’t exist! Well, guess what! They do exist! And the second you stop feeling guilty, you’ll go right back to pushing Bernie away, until you shove her in that old house with your mother and pretend as if she doesn’t exist too!”

When she finishes her rant, Bernadetta’s voice feels ragged. Felix wears an expression she has never seen before: part shock, part dismay, and a note of genuine sadness.

“Is that what you think? That I am trying to forget you? I think about you every second of every day.” His voice is soft as he says it, with a tenderness that almost seems alien.

“Yeah, but you wish that you didn’t, so that you can think about war or swords or something else instead.”

She’s not sure how long she can handle him looking at her with that strange expression. Is this what little crybaby Felix looked like before he sobbed for Dimitri’s attention? Or is this just another prelude to anger and avoidance? 

He turns away from her abruptly. “How long does it take to find a fucking blanket.”

“Aha! See! You’re doing it again!”

“I know that!” he snarls. “Is this what it’s going to be then? We have one fight, and we’re dooming ourselves to a lifetime of…of _this_.”

“No! But I’m allowed to be mad at you, you know!”

“Well, how long are you going to be mad at me for?”

“I don’t know! At…at least for tonight! You don’t have to be here, you know. I can wait for the healer on my own.”

“You’re were just attacked. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Well, then I guess you’ll just have to watch me be mad.”

Felix leans back on the upholstery. His jaw rolls as he stares out, lost in angry thought.

Still cold, still mad, Bernadetta sits on her hands for warmth, but moving her arm makes it shoot with pain. It makes her groan, and she returns her hands back on her lap. Felix looks over and sighs.

Suddenly, his arms slide around her on the chaise and pulls her into his embrace. His body surrounds her, better than any blanket—not that Bernadetta wants to admit this. His chin nestles into her hair.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Well, there’s no reason for you to be cold,” he says, in that stubborn tone of voice he only uses when he doesn’t want to concede. Bernadetta’s arm aches, and she hasn’t slept, and her skin sucks in the warmth that Felix gives her. “I can’t get you a blanket so this is the next best thing.”

Bernadetta wants to resist him. Bernadetta wants to be angry. But Bernadetta also wants to be warm and to stop feeling so damn scared, and although she hates to admit it, his embrace still soothes her.

She doesn’t sink into his embrace, but she doesn’t fight it either. He seems content enough to act as a radiator, so she doesn’t push it. Neither of them say anything. The minutes pass by, marked only by the steady tick of the clock on the mantle.

“I’m still mad at you, you know,” she says abruptly.

“Well, good. Get it out of your system. I want to see you smiling tomorrow.”

“You first, you jerk.”

“Hmph. If I smile, will you stop being mad at me?”

“You’re not getting off that easy, you know.”

“What if I laugh?”

The idea of Felix just outright laughing is so absurd that Bernadetta’s lips quirk involuntarily upwards. Felix must see it, because he snorts, and Bernadetta quickly moves her hands to force her face back into a frown.

“Stop it,” she says. “I want to be mad at you.”

“Get some rest,” he says. “You look exhausted.” He hands pushes her head into the crook of his neck, and it feels so comfortable that her muscles relax.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she says, but she can hear the fatigue in her voice. Bernadetta feels the full brunt of her exhaustion.

Her eye flutter closed. _Just for a minute_ , she thinks, and then she'll make him let go of her and she'll continue being mad. That’s the last thing she remembers before she dozes off. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We don't get many chances to see Bernadetta truly angry, but I like to imagine she would be a little petty with her arguments. Not that it isn't deserved, but the 'you first, you jerk' is a particular favorite line of mine. 
> 
> Thanks for the comments and kudos! I really love reading all of your reactions, even the ones that are really, really (but deservedly) mad at Felix. ;)
> 
> Next chapter, they investigate the assassins, and Felix and Bernadetta must confront their separation.


	6. Seal It with a Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rift has healed between Bernadetta and Felix, but scars from the assassination attempt linger. As their honeymoon comes to a close, Bernadetta and Felix must contend with their imminent separation, and reconcile their relationship before its too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: description of a panic attack

The old healer woman doesn’t arrive until the first blush of morning arises over the east. Even Felix had dozed off, his arm wound around Bernadetta, his face pressed into her hair. The healer had attended to Dimitri first, as was perhaps natural. Bernadetta’s wound still weeps, but the healer’s magic seals the flesh. She leaves as the last dregs of night bleed away from the sky, with instructions to apply a poultice twice daily.

Felix guides Bernadetta back to their room. Well, her room now, he supposes. He’s not certain where they stand. Bernadetta is so sleepy that she practically collapses against him, but who knows what she’ll be like when she finally wakes?

“I know you don’t want me here,” he says as they enter the room. “But I’m not leaving you alone right now. I’ll sleep on the floor. I’ll—”

Bernadetta nods sleepily and slugs into the bedroom. Felix has to remind her to change out of her bloodied nightgown and robe. He’ll have to burn those in the morning; there’s no use trying to scrub the blood from the delicate white fabric.

Once in clean clothing, as she sinks into the bed, her hand reaches for Felix.

“Are you going to sleep?” she asks, her eyes half-closed.

“I thought you were mad at me.”

“If you don’t sleep, who is going to protect ol’ Bernie from getting sniped,” she murmurs. “Besides, you are so comfy. Like cuddling an angry cat.”

That doesn’t sound very comfortable at all to Felix, and frankly the compliment makes his ears burn. Her hand lingers on his wrist, and he can feel the exhaustion pull at his eyelids. She is right. What good is he without rest?

Felix doesn’t remember falling asleep, nor does he recall hugging Bernadetta to his chest. But that is how he wakes, her hands planted against his chest, her legs interlaced with his. She’s awake and staring at his face. When he catches her, she blushes and turns away.

“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What time is it?”

Bernadetta shrugs. Probably late, judging by the bright sun escaping between the drapes. Felix should not have slept, not when Dimitri was attacked like that. At the same time, he is loath to move from his current position.

“How do you think Dimitri is?” she murmurs.

“If he was dead, we’d have heard by now.” His fingers skim her forehead, brushing aubergine strands from her forehead. When he realizes what he’s doing, he quickly retracts his hand.

“Aren't you going to check on him?”

“I will. In a minute.”

 _Kiss her._ The thought inflames him. It seems like the perfect moment—only he’s not sure he deserves it. He had fucked up so badly that to kiss her would only make things worse. She would accuse him of trying to appease her or of leading her on when he had no intentions of romance.

“Are you still mad at me?” he asks instead.

Bernadetta chews her cheek. “A little bit.”

“I can live with that,” he says. “How’s your arm?”

“It hurts, but I’ve had worse.” She holds it up as if to show it off. Felix means to take her hand so that he can examine the bandage, but instead, he interlaces his fingers with hers. He feels her shift deeper against him as he does so, sparks flying through his body as she does so. 

“Well, we should probably change the bandage soon,” he says, trying to offload the heavy feeling that sits in his breast. His heart has begun to pound, as though he had just finish running several laps around the manor. “We have a lot to do. There’s no time to dawdle.”

“Mmhm.” As if sensing that he wants to run, Bernadetta clings to the collar of his shirt. Heat creeps up his neck. This why he doesn’t wear shirts to bed, he thinks, as if that explains that the sudden flush of warmth.

Maybe kissing her isn’t about deserving it. Maybe it’s about saying sorry. Maybe it’s about conquering this racing sensation in his heart. Maybe it’s about feeling her curves in his hands and her mouth against his.

A heavy knock at the door interrupts them. The trance shatters.

“Felix!” The boar calls. Bernadetta takes in a sharp breath but Felix only groans. “Felix! Open up this instant!”

“Is he going to knock the door down?” Bernadetta asks in a hush. Now she clings to his shirt for a very different reason, and Felix seethes with annoyance.

“What do you want?” he calls back to Dimitri, unable to keep the growling timbre from his voice.

“We need to speak this instant!”

“Hold on! Geez!"

Felix rolls off the bed. He’s still in the same clothing from last night. As he changes his shirt, he spies Bernadetta watching him. Her face turns away in a flush.

“Get dressed,” Felix says. “He may wish to speak to you too.”

“Huh? Me? Why would he want to speak to me?”

Felix shrugs. “You were there last night.” The knocking continues. “I said hold on!” he snaps towards the door.

Bernadetta shyly rises from the bed, tugging the hem of her nightgown down modestly. When she dresses and emerges from the screen, Felix finds himself spotting her for any other injuries, or at least that’s what he tries to tell himself as he studies her. Her hair is still mussed from bed, and her bare legs spot fresh bruises. 

“Um, Felix?” she asks. He realizes he’s been the one staring now. In a fluster, he goes to answer the door.

As soon as Felix opens it, Dimitri marches in, an apologetic Dedue at his heels. Bernadetta slides behind Felix, gripping his hand with an iron grasp.

“You are certainly leisurely this morning,” Dimitri says.

“We were up all night,” Felix snaps. “The healer didn’t come until dawn.”

Dimitri notices Bernadetta and sighs. “Bernadetta, I must extend my thanks. I put you in grave danger last night, and I apologize for barging in like this.” It is a half apology. His voice teeters between the courteous prince and the feral boar, as if he is pulled two different ways.

Felix sneers. Not that he needs the boar’s niceties, but the interruption leaves Felix sour, and the least Dimitri could do was offer a proper apology.

“Oh, uh, well, no problem, I guess.” She laughs nervously.

“You look well,” Felix says, “for a man who was just poisoned.”

“It was a sedative,” Dimitri says. “I suppose they were not confident of their chances in battle.”

“Are you injured?”

“No. I am afraid Bernadetta bore the brunt of the attack.”

 _And for what?_ Bernadetta nearly threw her life away for Dimitri.

“I believe I have identified the drug used,” Dedue says. Although he keeps his voice level, his hands are tightly clenched behind his back. His lips have a curl that betray his inner rage. “I have seen it before. It only grows in northern Faerghus and…and Duscur.”

It confirms what they have all already guessed. This is no imperial attack. The assassins came from within Faerghus.

“They will try to blame Duscur,” Felix says.

Dedue nods. “I am afraid so.”

“Absurd. Completely absurd!” Dimitri roars. “This is no Duscur attack. This is Cornelia’s doing.”

“Keep your wits about you.” Felix crosses his arms. “This is no time to lose your cool.”

“Lose my cool? Lose my cool!” Dimitri begins to laugh. It shakes through him. “I was nearly murdered, last night, Felix! The court will not certify my coronation. My uncle still rules over Faerghus, and my nation is overruled by a spitting asp who wants to offer us up to the Empire on a silver platter.”

“And if everyone thinks you’re a madman, she’ll be able to do it.”

“What do you suggest I do then, _Felix_?”

Felix sighs. His eyes meet Dedue’s across the room. They both realize what must be done. Dimitri is simply waiting for Felix to say it. The idea gives Felix a strange anxiety.

“You are not safe here,” he says. “Look, my father would obviously want us to take you to Fraldarius where you can be protected.”

“I am not running!” Dimitri says. “They want me away from Fhirdiad. They want me away from my rightful throne. I will not satisfy them with my absence.”

“I can respect that,” Felix says.

Dimitri’s lip almost twitch in a smile. “Never thought I would hear you say that.”

“I’m not here to stop you,” Felix says. “But don’t be stupid about it either. A hasty retreat could be exactly what they want. We need a plan.”

“I have already written to the capital informing them of the incident,” Dedue says. “I hope you do not mind, Felix, but I took the liberty of addressing it to your father.”

Felix may have his issues with Dedue, but this was a welcome gift. He had been dreading trying to compose that damn letter. 

“Wait for my father’s people to come,” Felix says. “He’ll send a retinue. You’ll be safer then.”

Dimitri scoffs. “Strange that you of all people would urge caution.”

The words come up like bile. Felix cannot help himself.

“Too many people died for you to just throw your life away.”

Dimitri’s head turns, eyes like glass crystalizing on Felix. Felix preens, like a ram about to lock horns with his rival. He waits to see what Dimitri will say. Only Bernadetta's nail sinking into the skin of his arm ground him. 

It is Dedue who speaks. “I think that was unwarranted.” Threat underlies his placid tenor.

“And you, Felix?” Dimitri asks. “What will you do?”

Felix opens his mouth to speak, expecting the answers to come flying out as straight and pointed as they always do. But silence sticks in his craw, and his mouth hangs empty. _What will he do?_

He glances down at Bernadetta. Her body has gone rigid straight, like a statue. She wants no part in this conversation. She wants safety and stability—a room that will never be broached by assassins or mad princes.

She needs to go to Aversea. But Felix is not sure he can follow. For so long he has known this coming, but suddenly, it hits him: he will have to leave Bernadetta. Can he really leave her now, of all times, when she has just survived an attack? 

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I have my own affairs to get in order.”

“Well, get them in order,” Dimitri expels a shaky breath. His hands migrate to his temples, fingers digging deep circles. “I feel as though this place is robbing me of my senses.”

As Dimitri leaves, Felix realizes that this decision will be more difficult than he ever realized.

So much for not getting attached.

* * *

A letter arrives by Pegasus the next day from Lord Rodrigue. There are two missives contained within: one for Dimitri and one for Felix.

“ _Keep His Highness occupied for a few days at least_ ,” Felix reads to Bernadetta in their bedroom. He paces at the foot of their bed. “ _He cannot return to Fhirdiad yet. Cornelia tightens her hold on Rufus every day. We have received reports that the Empire has encroached on the western border, and I fear that there are more snakes in the court than we previously anticipated. If possible, convince His Highness to return to Aversea with you and your bride. Send my regards to Bernadetta and thank her for her service for Faerghus. Margrave Gautier wishes to express his apologies for his suspicions of Bernadetta, and her heroic actions are being praised at court._ ” Felix crumples up the letter and throws it against the vanity. “As if we care what those cretins at court think.”

“Well, they don’t suspect me anymore. That’s a comfort at least. No one’s angling for my head.”

She sits at the foot of the bed, trying to focus on her embroidery, but the intrigue distracts her so much that her stitches come all wrong. She pokes her finger and sighs. Her hand has not stopped shaking since the assassination attempt.

Felix comes over and buries a kiss into her hair. Since the attack, something has changed in their relationship. Bernadetta cannot put her finger on it. So much remains the same. But he’s a little less coy with his affection now. All of a sudden, he holds her hand and brushes kisses against her brow and gives her stares that could melt iron. Bernadetta does not want to complain, but it is a sudden shift, and she's not certain what to make of it. 

“I wouldn’t let them have it even if they tried.”

Bernadetta enjoys this newfound intimacy, but she still yearns for something more. Something a little more direct than just pecks on the head or sweet little nothings. Yesterday, he had almost kissed her—she was certain of it. Her thoughts keep circling around the feel of his callused hands in hers or the texture of his shirt in her hands.

She wants that again, only this time without Dimitri disrupting the whole thing. Yet the last time Bernadetta had tried to make a move, she had been resolutely denied. If she tries that again, he’ll definitely tell her to back off. She can imagine what he would say too. _The prince was almost assassinated, Bernie! Some mean lady in Fhirdiad wants to usurp the throne, Bernie!_ _There’s no time for this._

Perhaps it is best to wait for Felix to decide things, even if he moves at snail’s pace. Still, their honeymoon is reeling to an end, and Bernadetta cannot help but feel as though they are running out of time.

“My father’s plan won’t work.” He’s back to ranting about the letter. “Dimitri won’t go to Fraldarius. He’s determined to take out Cornelia himself. He’s going to get himself killed at this rate, and everyone else along with him.”

“Your father won’t let that happen.”

“My father won’t have a choice. Cornelia is dragging Rufus around by his balls. Dimitri is still only a prince. And if my father doesn’t play his cards exactly right, he’ll be dragged down with all of them. And he’ll probably do it too. He’d just sacrifice himself for his beloved prince. Forget about the rest of us.”

The honesty of his statement surprises her, and it strikes Bernadetta what’s changed. Felix has suddenly opened up to her, just a little bit—just enough room for her to wriggle in and take root. The little signs of affection are just signs of that, but talking so boldly about his father shows something more vulnerable. 

Bernadetta reaches up and pulls at his shoulders. He looks at her, confused. 

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, come on Just sit with me.” she says. He tries to swat her off but ends up perching beside her anyways. She wraps her arms around his back, chin against his shoulder. She feels the tension knotted up in his back, and he refuses to relax, even in her arms. “I know you’re worried about your dad.”

“Pfft. I wouldn’t go that far.”

“And Dimitri.”

“I couldn’t care less about the boar. As far as I’m concerned, Dimitri died years ago.”

Bernadetta sighs. Maybe he hasn’t quite opened up that much.

“You know, for somebody who is always going on about protecting the people he cares for, it’s awful hard knowing who you’re talking about.”

Felix leans his head against hers. She enjoys the little small intimacy of his cheek against hers. “I care about you. I dragged you into the middle of this, and now you’re suffering.” The shoulders relax, and he begins to melt against her. 

“Oh, come on. I kinda brought this on myself. Look at everything that has happened! Who knows where’d I be if it wasn’t for you?”

“You were attacked, Bernadetta, and I wasn't there to save you.”

“Yes, you were. Besides, Bernie’s been attacked a lot in her life. She can take it.” That only makes him huff and grunt. “You know what helps when I’m feeling anxious?”

“I’m not anxious.”

 _This man._ Bernadetta sighs and tries again. “Well, if you ever _are_ anxious, I try to find a place all myself. And then I take a moment, with a deep breath, and I think everything around me. All the little sensations. What do I hear? What do I see? What do I feel? And I focus on those until all the little worries go away.”

“Does that really work?”

“Sometimes.”

“I don’t think will be solved so easily,” Felix says. “I’m torn, all right? If the boar is going back to Fhirdiad, I should go with him. They’ll need me there. But I can’t…I—” He pauses, takes a deep breath, and Bernadetta wonders if he’s trying her advice. “I can’t stand the idea of leaving you alone. What if something happens to you while I’m not there? I promised to protect you, and I’ve done a shit job of it so far.”

Bernadetta does not know how to solve this conundrum. Felix’s confession burns through her, and she would be lying if she was not scared about going to Aversea alone. Dunmar was supposed to be safe. Who is to say that Aversea will be?

But she also cannot tell Felix to abandon Dimitri.

“Don’t worry about little ol’ me. I’ve always managed on my own.”

“It’s like you said. I can’t just stop feeling it.”

That sounds like a small victory to her. He's admitting feelings. Plus, the grumpy tone of his voice makes Bernadetta smile for some reason. Things have changed, and it fills her breast with a light feeling.

A boldness steals over her, and she quickly tries kissing him on the temple—just like all of his little brow kisses. That has to be okay, right? 

Felix turns suddenly to face her. It breaks them out of their embrace. His fingers clutch her chin. Bernadetta’s eyes widen, and her breath catches. She thinks he might say something brusque and dismissive.

Instead, he leans forward and presses his lips against hers.

It is chaste and quick, and it leaves Bernadetta wanting more.

A blush steals across his face, and he ducks away. “Was that all right?”

“Yes,” Bernadetta rasps. She wants to ask for more. Her fingers coast along his cheek, hoping to push his face back towards her. _Finally_ , she thinks, _the boy decides to commit!_

Instead, he stands up quickly. “Enough sitting! We’re losing optimal time. We should go… train or practice or something.”

“Huh?” Bernadetta feels the whiplash of his statement. All it took was a little smooch, and he's already trying to make a run for it. The boy is jumpier than a rabbit, she thinks. 

“It’s more important now than ever to make sure that you can defend yourself.”

"Really?"

"What?" 

“Ugh.” Bernadetta falls backwards onto the bed. “You’re the most frustrating man alive, you know that?”

* * *

The next day, another flock of pegasi arrive. These are not Fraldarius men. They wear chains of command that note various offices within the prosecutorial division of Fhirdiad. Dimitri is taking a constitutional with Dedue when they arrive, so they ask for Bernadetta instead.

“They want to speak to me?” she asks Felix when he comes for her. “Who are these people?”

Felix shrugs. “Some bigwigs from Fhirdiad. They’re here to investigate the attack.”

For some reason, the idea of reliving that night spikes Bernadetta’s anxieties. Felix doesn’t seem to notice her distress.

“I have a feeling they’re going to try to pin this on Duscur,” Felix says. “Mark my words. They’re going to try to take Dedue away from Dimitri. You have to make sure that they understand that these were Kingdom assassins.”

Bernadetta is unsure where the assassins came from. Felix seems so sure that they were Kingdom, but if they weren’t? Would she be lying? Oooh, she’s not a good liar. They would see through her for sure.

They walk downstairs hand in hand. The Inspectors wait in the study. Bernadetta hasn’t been in there since the night of the attack. One in dark robes extends a hand and introduces himself as Inspector Thierry.

“Lady Bernadetta von Varley, I understand,” Thierry says to her.

“It’s, uh, Fraldarius now.” The name still feels strange on her tongue.

“Mmhm.” It already sounds like he doesn’t believe her. He gestures for her to walk into the study. As Felix tries to follow, the Inspector puts a hand out to stop him. “Lord Felix, I would like to speak to your wife alone.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to ensure that her testimony is completely uninfluenced,” Thierry says.

“What difference does it make if I’m in the room?”

“Lord Felix, this is not a suggestion,” Thierry says with purpose. “I have the authority of the Crown to conduct this investigation as I please. Now leave us be.”

The cold ice of his voice makes Bernadetta flinch. More than ever, she wants Felix to be there, but the inspector snaps his fingers, and two guards step forward menacingly. Bernadetta knows that he will fight them. His eyes narrow and his jaw clenches.

“It’s okay,” Bernadetta says to Felix. The last thing she wants is a fight. All she has to do is just tell the menacing-looking stranger what happened that night. She can do that. Easy peasy. 

Felix squeezes her hand. “Fine. I'll wait for you outside.”

There are a smattering of official-looking folks in the room: a secretary scribbling down notes, a guard standing in the corner of the room, two men with drawn gray faces standing at the mantle. She has to remind herself that they are not enemies, but her instincts tell her to run.

No, she has to do this. She must cooperate. 

“Lady Bernadetta,” Thierry begins as he takes a seat at the desk. She sits across from him, hands clutched bone-white in her lap. “Let us begin. Please tell us what happened last night." Bernadetta tries to explain the attack as best she can. The scratch of the secretary's pens make her nervous. Thierry wear a mask of stone. Not a single flinch crosses his face. She cannot read him. "Tell me, what were you doing out with the prince so late anyways?" 

“I was getting food, and I ran into him. He wasn’t feeling well, so he asked me if I would go on a walk with him.”

“You were acquiring food after midnight?”

Oh boy, when he puts it that way, it sure sounds supicious. 

“I hadn’t eaten that day.”

“Why?”

“Um, well, I had a fight with Felix, so I didn’t leave my room that day.”

“Mmhm.” There it is again. That dismissive murmur. Bernadetta’s stomach sinks. “Is it not odd for newlyweds to be arguing?”

“Is it?” she squeaks. “I don’t know. It just happened, all right?”

“And then you were wandering the halls at midnight, where you _happen_ to run into his highness. Next thing, you are outside with him, in perfect view of the assassins.”

Bernadetta flinches. Is he really implying what she thinks she is? “What are you saying?”

“Nothing, Lady Bernadetta. I am merely pointing out the facts of the case.”

Bernadetta feels cold. Forget about Dedue. _They’re going to try to pin this on her!_

“He asked me,” Bernadetta says. “He asked me to go outside. Go ask Dimitri yourself. He'll back me up!”

“That is irrelevant for the moment,” Thierry says. “Now tell me about how you came to Faerghus. I understand that there is some controversy about that. You are a war bride, are you not? Taken hostage during the invasion of Garreg Mach? A forced and what seems to be contentious marriage with Lord Felix.”

She regrets telling him about the argument now. Taking a deep breath, she reminds herself that Felix waits on the other side. She just has to report the facts. They have nothing on her.

“I, um, defected. All on my own! It was my choice, I swear!” It is a struggle to keep her voice even, but she doesn't want them thinking she's suspicious for some reason. 

“Ah, yes. And why was that? Why would a young noble woman of the Empire leave her family and nation behind to turn towards a nation that is actively in war against her homeland?”

It does not matter what she says. They have already decided her guilt; they’re just hunting now for the right confession to stick. If she was forced to come here, then she did it in revenge. If she was not, she came here as a spy.

Bernadetta’s heart seizes, and suddenly it is very difficult to breathe. Her whole body breaks into a sweat. “I came here because I had friends here, and Felix—”

“Ah, yes, the great romance,” Thierry drones. “I have my doubts about that as well.” Tears spring and dribble down her face. Bernadetta buries her face into her hands. Thierry sighs. “Lady Bernadetta, be advised that the theatrics will not work in your favor.”

An intense sensation of fear hits her like a wall. Her heart beats so fast now that she can hear it in her ears.

“This is highly unsatisfactory, Lady Bernadetta. I am afraid that you are the only suspect. It will be my official opinion to place you into remand until you can be formally interrogated in Fhirdiad.”

 _Interrogated_? Like with chains and needles? Bernadetta prays to a goddess that has never answered her prayers. _Please, get her out of this. Deliver her from this awful man._

There’s a ruckus at the door. Sounds of scuffle break through, and Inspector Thierry jumps to his feet. The door bursts open. Bernadetta expects to see Felix, but instead, Dimitri saunters in, ablaze with fury.

“You!” He points at Inspector Thierry. “You sniveling little rat!”

Felix spills into the room after him, sword pulled halfway out of its hilt. For whom is his sword drawn? Wild-eyed Dimitri or scheming Inspector Thierry?

“I am here on behalf of the Crown, your highness,” Thierry says with a bow.

“ _I_ did not call for you.”

“Your Lord Uncle personally selected me.”

Dimitri resounds with a bitter, booming laugh. “Ah, yes, Rufus. I do not doubt he was involved with this assassination.”

“Your Highness, those assassins were of Imperial origin,” Thierry says, as though he is speaking to a child.

Bernadetta counts her breaths. She remembers her advice to Felix, but it fails to give her any comfort. Why it is so hard to fill her lungs with air? She wants to stand and go to Felix, but her limbs shake so badly she worries that she might buckle to the ground. Dimitri’s shouting blurs into background noise.

Felix kneels beside her. Bernadetta falls against him. She wants him to scoop her up, like just he did before, and whisk her out of this awful place.

“What did you do to her?” he snaps at Thierry.

“I merely asked a few questions,” Thierry intones, “most of which she failed to answer to any satisfaction.”

Bernadetta clutches the front of his shirt. “They think I did it. They think I tried to kill Dimitri. They’re going to arrest me and take me to Fhirdiad and oh, Felix, I didn’t do it. You know I didn’t!”

“How dare you!” he snaps at Thierry. “What evidence do you have?”

Dimitri laughs again. “Evidence? They need no evidence. Only a scapegoat.”

“I’ve had enough of this.” Felix grabs Bernadetta arm. She slides out of the chair and onto her feet. Turns out, she can stand after all, but she still feels weak. “I am not letting you touch her.” She feels like a rag doll, pulled from the room by Felix. Her mind still races, overloaded with the accusations launched against her.

Once they leave the study, Bernadetta’s mind clears. Her limbs still shake and her heart still pulses, but there’s a sense of relief with it. When they arrive back at her sacred room, she immediately throws herself onto the bed.

“What did he say to you?” Felix asks.

“Hold on…I just…I just need a minute.” Bernadetta closes her eyes and just breathes. _You’re no longer in the room with that awful man or his cronies,_ she tries to remind herself. “Felix? You’re not going to let them take me away, are you?”

“Of course not!” He almost sounds offended that she would even ask. “Dimitri was livid when he heard it was Inspector Thierry. Apparently that is one of Cornelia’s lapdogs.”

 _Cornelia_. That awful woman again.

He’s pacing in front of the bed. Bernadetta wants to tell him that it makes her more nervous, but he is so mad that she doesn’t want to provoke him either.

“Hmph. I knew it. Cornelia is a crony of the Empire. She had to get here before my father's people. If they can get you back to Fhirdiad, they will blame you for this and send you back to the Empire.”

Bernadetta hugs a pillow to her chest. She lets the silk case absorb her tears.

“What in the world does Rufus see in that woman! Anyone else would not dare to be so flagrant.” He whips around and only now does he seem to realize the state that Bernadetta is in. He’s probably sick of how often she cries. If only she could be brave and nonchalant like him.

As she buries her head into the pillows, she feels the bed sink beside her. “I’m not going to let them take you,” he says in a breathy grumble. “It was foolish of me to leave you alone with them.”

The pillow muffles Bernadetta’s groan. She thought she would be safe in Faerghus—away from her mother’s ambitions and her father’s violence. But as it turns out, there is plenty of violence and ambition to go around in the north as well.

“Bernadetta.” Felix tugs at the pillow, and Bernadetta tightens her grip. “Bernadetta, look at me.” She peeks up at him, halfway through the pillow. “I will take care of this. I will make sure you are safe.”

Is there any place safe for her any longer? No matter where she goes, danger lurks.

“Dimitri won’t be held back any longer,” Felix continues. “His departure is imminent, and I can’t stop him. We need to get you to Aversea.” This is it, she thinks, hugging the pillow even closer. This is the part where he tells her that he is leaving her. “We are leaving first thing in the morning. I am taking you there myself.”

This surprises Bernadetta. It is the opposite of what she expected to hear. She lifts her head up from the pillow.

“Wait, what? You’re coming with me?”

“Bernadetta, you were attacked, and it’s clear to me now that Cornelia will do whatever it takes to trade you back to your mother. I can’t let you out of my sight. I would be an idiot to let you go alone.”

“But what about Dimitri?”

Felix hesitates. The conflict is still evident in his expression. This decision does not sit with him. She can feel it.

“You come first,” he says at last. “What is this all for if not to protect the people I care about.”

“Oh, Felix,” Bernadetta says. “You care about Dimitri. I know you do.” He frowns and scoffs, but he cannot hide it. “I think you should go to Fhirdiad with Dimitri,” she adds in a small voice. “I’ll be fine going to Aversea alone. I promise. But Dimitri needs you more than I do.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Bernadetta hugs him tightly. “If something bad happens in Fhirdiad, you’ll be really upset if you’re not there to deal with it. And he is the Prince, and he’s up against a lot. That Cornelia lady is really scary and so are all of her henchmen. In comparison, all I have to worry about is meeting your mother, right?”

“Bernadetta, if they come for you—”

She shrugs. “Your uncle has the militia. And I can always run away again. Escaping is my best skill anyways. Honestly, they might just forget about me once I’m no longer a handy scapegoat to blame murders on. But something might really happen to Dimitri, and as much as I don’t want you to leave, I think you know that’s what you have to do.”

His mouths hang slightly open. She wonders if she said the wrong thing. Was he offended that she was sending him away like that?

“Bernadetta, I…” He swallows hard. His eyes meets hers. They’re searching her, she realizes, looking to see if she’s sincere.

He grabs her suddenly and pulls her into a kiss. The roughness surprises her, but once the shock fades, she leans into his embrace. 

This is no chaste kiss or peck on the cheek. This is everything that their wedding night was supposed to be, intimate and close and a little bit messy. Bernadetta clings to his collar, just in case he tries to leave again, but then his arm snakes around and slides her onto his lap. 

When they part, he whispers against her lips, “Bernadetta, thank you.” He kisses her again, lingering for a second, before adding, “I will make it up to you. I swear.”

“Good, because you have a lot to make up for,” Bernadetta says. “But I can wait, as long as you promise to come back.” Felix nods fervently. “But can I make one little request? When you go away, will you write to me? I know you hate writing letters, but it doesn’t have to be long or mushy or anything. Just enough to let poor Bernie know she’s not forgotten.”

“I’m not going to forget you.”

“Please?”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll do it.”

“And I want to spend the rest of our honeymoon together, even if it’s just today.”

Felix nods. He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Part of her desperately wishes that they had come to this days earlier. That they could have spent at least a few days together before splitting apart. 

“Yeah, as long as the boar doesn't start something. We can do whatever. We can—”

“If the next word out of your mouth is train, I’m going to divorce you.”

Felix frowns, and it almost makes Bernadetta laugh. “Well, what do you want to do then?” he asks sharply. 

“Really? You’re such a dope, Felix.” And then she pulls him down for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bringing them together just to split them apart again... ;) 
> 
> Chapters are slow this month due to professional obligations, and also I had to rewrite this chapter like five times until I was happy with it. But whoooo, plot's moving!


End file.
